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1 

THE  PRESENT  JEWS  NOT  THE  LAWFUL  HEIRS  OF  THE 
ABRAHAMIC  WILL. 


LETTERS 


TO  A 


MILLE  NARIAN. 


BY  REV.  A. '^WILLIAMSON, 

Poator  of  the  Presbyttnan  Church  of  Cheater,  If.  J. 


NEW    YORK: 
PUBLISHED   BY    M.    W.    DODD, 

CORNER  OF  PARK  ROW  AND  CITY  HALL  SQUARE. 

1852. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1852.  by 

M.  W.  DODD. 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


EDWARD  O.  JENKINS,  PRINTERj 
114   Nftsaau   Stree  t. 


|nti''0Muti0it  t0  U)t  lleahr. 


The  writer  of  these  letters,  when  he  be- 
gan this  investigation,  had  no  thought  of 
doing  more  than,  by  a  familiar  correspon- 
dence with  a  Millenarian  friend,  to  try  to 
satisfy  his  own  mind  as  far  as  he  could  in 
relation  to  the  views  of  Millenarians,  and 
he  now  presents  them  to  the  public,  rather 
as  a  matter  of  inquiry,  than  as  an  attempt 
to  lead  others  to  adopt  the  views  they  con- 
tain ;  for  he  is  aware  that  they  diverge,  in 
one  point  at  least,  so  far  from  the  common 
views,  even  of  those  who  utterly  reject  the 
Millenarian  views,  that  he  can  hardly  ven- 
ture to  believe  his  own  conclusions.  And 
yet,  after  presenting  these  views  to  a  num- 
ber of  friends,  and  hearing  their  remarks, 
he  cannot  get  away  from  those  conclusions 
to  which  he  has  arrived  ;  and  he  now,  in  ac- 


INTRODUCTION. 


cordance  with  tho  expressed  wishes  of  a 
few  friends,  presents  them  in  this  way  to 
the  public,  hoping  to  draw  the  attention  of 
some  more  able  student  of  the  prophets  to 
the  distinct  question — Who  are,  at  present, 
the  recognized  seed  of  Abraham,  to  whom 
the  promises  belong  ? 

In  these  letters,  the  covenant  promises  of 
Grod  to  Abraham  and  his  seed,  as  explained 
and  expounded  by  the  prophets,  are  viewed 
under  the  character  of  a  will,  or  testament, 
as  Paul  calls  it,  Heb.  9  :  15-19,  in  which 
God  by  covenant  promises  to  bequeath  to 
Abraham  and  his  seed  rich  legacies,  to  be 
paid  over  to  them  in  successive  generations, 
as  these  legacies  become  due  according  to 
the  terms  of  the  will,  and  it  is  taken  for 
granted,  that  all  the  prophetic  promises  to 
G-od's  covenant  people,  were  included  in  the 
covenant  promises  to  Abraham,  in  whom  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  were  to  be  blessed. 
With  this  view  before  the  mind,  the 
1st.  First  inquiry  wdiich  naturally  pre- 
sents itself,  at  this  distant  period  from  the 
date  of  the  will,  is,  who  are  at  present  the 
lawful  heirs  to  this  will  ?     And, 


INTRODUCTION. 


2d,  What  legacies  are  still  due  to  these 
heirs  ? 

In  attempting  to  find  who  are  at  this  day, 
the  heirs  to  the  Abrahainic  will,  the  writer 
does  not  take  it  for  granted,  that  every  man 
calling  himself  a  Jew,  a  descendant  of 
Abraham,  is  consequently  an  heir,  or  that 
every  uncircumcised  person  is  not. 

And    here,  it    may    perhaps   as    well    be 

stated,  as  any  where,  that  the  conclusion  to 

which   the    writer   has    been   led,  right    or 

wrong,  is,  that  the  present  people  scattered 

over   the    world,  calling  themselves   Jews, 

have    according    to  their  own  law,  broken 

their   covenant   with    Grod,    forfeited   their 

claim  to  being,  in  a  scriptural  sense,  the 

seed  of  Abraham  and  heirs  to  the  promises 

made    to    him,    and     are    at    present    no 

more  to  be  considered  the  covenant   people 

of  Grod  ;  because  descended  from  Abraham, 

than  the  Ishmaelites  or  the  Edomites  ;  and 

that  consequently  they  are  not  spoken  of  as 

the    seed   of  Abraham  by  any  of  the   Old 

Testament    prophets,    after   the    death    of 

Christ ;  and  that  there  appears,  therefore,  no 

promise  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament,  that 
1* 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

they  will  ever  return  as  a  nation,  either  as 
the  church,  or  to  the  church,  or  any  other 
way,  except  as  individuals  in  common  with 
the  Gentiles. 

This  result  was  as  unexpected  to  the 
writer,  when  he  commenced  this  investiga- 
tion, as  it  can  be  to  the  reader,  and  yet  he 
seems  forced  to  it. 

The  following  process  is  adopted  :  Be- 
ginning with  Abraham,  it  is  found,  that 
from  the  first,  only  a  few  of  the  descendants 
of  Abraham  were  ever  counted  as  heirs, 
only  one  of  Abraham's  eight  children,  and 
only  one  of  Isaac's  two.  After  that  there 
were  some  twenty  laws,  the  penalty  of 
which,  was  exscision  from  the  people  of  God, 
as  heirs,  and  that  Gentile  converts  became 
heirs.  See  Ex.  12  :  48.  So  that  when  Paul 
says,  "  they  are  not  all  Israel  which  are  of 
Israel,"  he  seems  to  imply,  that  even  then 
we  must  apply  the  terms  of  the  will  and 
law,  as  explained  by  the  inspired  writers, 
to  determine  who  were  the  lawful  heirs. 

In'these  short  letters,  the  writer  has  fol- 
lowed in  a  very  cursory  manner  the  history 
of  the   seed   of  Abraham,  and  by  applying 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  conditions  of  the  will  and  the  law,  has 
endeavored  to  determine  who  in  successive 
ages  were  the  lawful  heirs.  As  stated  be- 
fore, from  the  first,  only  a  few  were.  At 
first  they  were  dropped,  so  that  in  the  third 
generation  only  one  sixteenth  part  were 
counted,  fifteen  were  dropped  out  of  sixteen. 
After  this  they  were  cut  off  for  the  violations 
of  the  conditions  of  the  will,  as  explained 
by  Moses — as  was  the  case  with  the  uncir- 
cumcised  man-child,  and  with  idolaters. 
So  that  the  ten  tribes,  when  they  as  a  nation, 
set  up  their  golden  calves,  thereby  seem  to 
have  incurred  the  penalty  of  exscision  from 
the  heirs  of  promise,  and  were  in  conse- 
quence sent  captive  from  Canaan,  and  that 
without  any  promise,  that  the  writer  has 
discovered,  connected  with  the  threatened 
expulsion,  that  as  a  nation  they  would  ever 
be  brought  back,  as  was  the  case  repeatedly 
when  afterward  Judah  was  threatened  ;  ex- 
cept so  far  as  they  fell  to,  and  became  one 
with  Judah.  Here  again,  ten  tribes  out  of 
twelve  were,  or  appear  to  be  left  out  of  the 
heirs,  and  the  smaller  part,  to  be  heirs. 
Then,  when  we  trace  the  history  of  Judah, 


INTRODUCTION. 


down  to  the  time  of  Christ,  we  see  them 
again  divide  into  two  parties,  the  smaller, 
as  always,  following,  and  the  larger  rejecting 
Christ,  and  refusing  to  hear  or  obey  Him, 
and  finally  causing  Him  to  be  put  to  death, 
and  seem  thereby  to  incur  the  penalty  of 
final  exscision  from  all  future  connection 
with  the  people  of  God,  according  to  the 
law  of  Moses ;  Deut.  18  :  19,  as  explained 
by  Peter,  Acts,  3  :  23,  in  farther  proof  of 
which  they  have  remained  separate  now  for 
more  than  1800  years.  The  penalty  here, 
as  explained  by  Peter,  seems  as  positive  as 
that  of  the  uncircumcised  man-child,  and 
therefore  all  the  heirs  that  remain  after  this, 
are  to  be  found  in  that  party  that  received 
Christ  as  their  Saviour,  and  obeyed  Him  as 
their  king,  and  those  who  fell  to  him  from 
the  other  Jews,  soon  after.  To  these  are 
afterwards  to  be  added,  as  always,  such 
G-entile  converts  as  fell  to  them,  however 
many.  So  that  after  this,  the  line  of  suc- 
cession or  heirship  is  to  be  found,  not  in  the 
church,  as  under  the  old  cov^enant,  but  only 
in  true  believers,  as  foretold  by  Jer.  3]  :  81. 
And  that  therefore,  the  present  Jews  are  as 


INTRODUCTION.  W 

essentially  Gentile  in  their  true  character, 
though  descended  from  Abraham,  as  any  of 
the  descendants  of  Ishraael  or  Esau,  and 
have  no  more  to  expect  from  the  promises 
made  to  Abraham  ;  and  that  the  church  has 
no  more  cause  to  seek  for,  and  expect  their 
conversion,  than  that  of  any  other  people  ; 
and  beyond  that,  it  seems  more  than  inti- 
mated, that  these  scattered  Jews  as  a  nation 
will  never  be  converted,  nor  amalgamated 
with  other  nations,  except  a  few  of  them, 
but  will  always,  as  now,  stand  out,  in  every 
nation  where  the  Bible  is  read,  as  beacons 
of  warning  to  them  of  the  fearful  conse- 
quence of  rejecting  Christ,  calling  him  an 
impostor,  and  trampling  on  his  blood. 

These  views  seem  corroborated  by  the 
teachings  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  and  by 
the  fact,  that  no  prophet  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, so  far  as  the  writer  can  discover, 
has  ever  distinctly  taught,  that  the  Jews 
would  ever  go  into  captivity  after  they  were 
carried  to  Babylon,  but  the  contrary  ;  and 
still  less,  that  the  Jews,  as  Jews,  would  be 
carried  captive  by  the  Romans  after  the 
final  capture  and  destruction  of  Jerusalem  : 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

nor  has  he  been  able  to  find  that  they  speak 
of  them  at  all,  as  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
when  referring  to  a  period  beyond  the  death 
of  Christ. 

Christ  seems  the  only  prophet,  who  dis- 
tinctly speaks  of  their  dispersion  after  his 
death,  and  he  certainly  does  not  tell  us 
plainly,  (nor  do  any  of  the  New  Testament 
writers,  all  of  whom  were  Jews  in  cove- 
nant,) that  those  whom  He  denominates  chil- 
dren of  their  father,  the  devil,  will  ever  be 
brought  back  to  their  own  land  again,  as 
God's  covenant  people.  So  that  we  are  led 
to  the  final  conclusion,  that  the  only  seed  of 
Abraham  now  remaining,  who  can  claim 
any  of  the  legacies  bequeathed  to  Abraham 
and  his  seed,  are  true  believers,  such  as 
those  to  whom  Paul  refers,  when  he  says, 
Gal.  3  :  29,  "  If  ye  be  Christ's,  then  are  ye 
Abraham's  seed  and  heirs,  according  to  the 
promise."  Whether  these  views  are  substan- 
tiated by  the  following  letters,  the  readers 
must  determine  for  themselves  when  they 
have  read  them.  If  they  are  not,  and  can- 
not be,  the  writer  is  as  anxious  as  any  other 
to  see  where  he  has  been  led  astray. 


LETTER    I. 

Dear  Sir  : — So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
understand  your  views  on  the  general  sub- 
ject of  millenarianism,  they  seem  to  be 
something  like  this.  The  promises  made 
by  the  Lord  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob, 
and  repeated  by  the  Prophets,  included 
great  blessings,  a  small  part  of  which  bless- 
ings were  received  by  the  Jews  when  they 
were  put  in  possession  of  the  promised  land 
of  Canaan  ;  but  that  much  the  larger 
part  of  these  promised  blessings  are  yet  in 
reserve  for  them,  and  are  to  be  received  by 
them  when  they  shall  again  have  been  put 
in  possession  of  that  land,  and  the  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ  shall  in  person  reign  over  them  in 
Jerusalem,  and  be  the  personal  dispenser  of. 
these  promised  blessings. 

Or,  in  plainer  terms,  that  the  will  of  our 
Lord  bequeathed  by  covenant  promise  to 
Abraham    and    his    seed,    or    descendants, 


12  LETTERS  TO  A  MILLENARIAN. 

great  riches,  temporal  and  spiritual,  to  be 
paid  over  to  them  in  different  ages  of  the 
world,  a  small  part  of  which  was  paid 
over  to  the  Israelites  in  former  days,  but 
that  much  the  larger  part  is  yet  to  be  paid 
over  to  them  at  a  future  period  of  their 
history,  when  they  shall  again  be  put  in  pos- 
session of  the  land  of  their  fathers,  and 
Christ  shall  in  person  reign  over  them  there. 
Now,  if  it  be  admitted  that  there  are 
legacies  yet  due  to  the  seed  of  Abraham 
and  heirs  of  the  covenant  promises,  to  be 
paid  to  them  at  a  future  period,  then  at  this 
distant  period  from  the  date  of  that  will, 
the  first  question  to  be  examined  seems  to 
be,  ''  who  are  the  lawful  heirs  to  these  rich 
legacies  ?  Does  it  follow  that  the  present 
people  scattered  over  the  world  claiming  to 
be  Jews  descended  from  Abraham  are  cer- 
tainly the  lawful  heirs,  when  it  is  certain 
that  a  larger  number  of  the  descendants  of 
Abraham  are,  or  may  be  still  living,  who 
are  not  known  under  that  name  ?"  We 
think  not.  Besides,  it  is  an  undoubted  fact, 
that  a  great  number  of  the  descendants  of 
Abraham  forfeited  all  claim  to  these  cove- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  lo 

nant  promises  by  the  violation  of  those  laws 
the  penalty  of  which  was  exscision  from 
that  people,  and  many  others,  such  as  the 
descendants  of  Ishmael  and  Esau,  were 
never  included.  The  mere  fact,  therefore, 
that  the  present  nation  of  the  Jews  claim 
that  name,  and  all  nations  agree  to  let  them 
retain  it,  does  not  prove  that  they  are  the 
heirs  to  these  rich  legacies.  It  often  hap- 
pens that  a  large  inheritance  descends  to  a 
female  heir,  who  by  marriage  has  changed 
her  name,  and  so  the  estate  descends  to 
persons  of  another  name,  while  there  are 
many  relatives  of  the  same  name  who  are 
not  in  the  line  of  succession,  and  therefore 
though  they  have  the  same  name,  are  not 
heirs  of  the  estate  at  all.  How,  then,  do  we 
know  that  the  present  people  claiming  the 
name  of  Jews,  are  the  lawful  heirs,  when 
it  is  certain  that  all  the  descendants  of 
Abraham  are  not  heirs  ?  For  the  Lord  him- 
self said  that  the  son  of  the  bond  woman 
should  not  be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free. 
We  think  then,  that  the  first  question  to  be 
settled  is,  who  are  at  this  day  the  recog- 
2 


LETTERS    TO   A    MILLENARIAN. 

;nized'  seed  of  Abraham  and  heirs  of  the 
promises  made  to  Abraham  and  his  seed. 

If  a  careful  examination  of  this  question 
leads  to  the  conclusion  that  the  present 
Jews  claiming  to  be  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
have  forfeited  all  claim  to  those  legacies, 
and  are  therefore  not  in  the  line  of  succes- 
sion, as  we  are  inclined  to  think  it  will, 
then  it  will  follow  that  no  promises  made  to 
Abraham  and  his  seed  by  the  Lord,  and  re- 
ipeated  by  the  Prophets,  can  belong  to  them, 
and  we  must  look  elsewhere  for  the  heirs  of 
all  the  legacies  yet  due  to  the  seed  of  Abra- 
.ham. 

It  has,  therefore,  appeared  to  me,  that  a 
^definite  answer  to  the  question  who  are  the 
heirs  to  the  unfulfilled  prophetic  promises 
to  Abraham  and  his  seed,  would  relieve  the 
v^xplanation  of  the  prophecies  relating  to 
the  Jews  of  some  of  their  difficulties.  If  it 
be  found  that  the  Jews,  who  are  scattered 
through  the  different  nations  of  the  world, 
.both  Israel  and  Judah,  are  the  heirs  of  these 
rich  legacies,  then  these  prophecies  are  to 
be  explained  so  as  to  meet  that  view.     But 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  15 

if,  on  the  contrary,  it  be  found  that  they 
have,  according  to  the  plain  law  of  God, 
forfeited  all  claim  to  those  promises,  and 
that  Abraham  has  other  children  who  have 
not,  and  are  therefore  the  legitimate  heirs 
to  these  unfulfilled  prophetic  promises,  or 
those  rich  legacies,  then  the  prophecies  must 
be  explained  to  meet  that  view. 

Now,  although  an  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion has  generally  been  admitted  to  be  given 
in  a  sufficiently  clear  manner  by  the  Proph- 
ets themselves,  yet  it  is  manifest  that  the 
different  writers  on  the  prophecies  relating 
to  the  Jews  have  had  different,  though  it 
may  be  not  very  definite  answers  to  this 
question  before  their  minds,  which  has  led 
to  equally  different  views,  as  to  the  true 
meaning  of  some  of  these  prophecies. 

The  object  of  the  following  letters  will 
be,  as  far  as  possible,  to  determine  who  are 
tlie  lawful  heirs  to  these  unpaid  prophetic 
legacies,  and  thus  to  endeavor  to  open  the 
way  to  a  more  uniform  understanding  of 
the  Scriptures  and  the  consequent  duties 
of  the  Church  to  the  scattered  tribes  of 
Israel. 


16  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARlAN. 

In  examining  the  question  who  are  heirs 
to  a  will,  both  the  law  of  the  land  and  the 
conditions  of  the  will  are  to  be  carefully 
examined.  Some  time  since  a  report  reach- 
ed this  country  by  a  letter  from  England, 
that  a  man  in  England  by  the  name  of 
Townly  had  died  and  left  a  large  estate  to 
his  heirs,  who  were  in  America,  and  were 
supposed  to  be  in  New  Jersey.  Persons  of 
that  name  supposing  they  were  no  doubt 
the  heirs,  collected  together  and  sent  to  Eng- 
land to  learn  more  about  the  matter,  when 
to  their  sorrow,  they  learned  that  the  only 
heir  to  said  deceased  was  a  daughter  named 
Mary,  who  married  a  man  whose  name  was 
Lawrence  ;  so  that,  according  to  the  law  of 
descent,  the  heirs  were  now  called  by  a 
different  name,  and  that  therefore  no  man 
by  the  name  of  Tow^nly  could  now  be  an 
heir  unless  by  another  change  in  a  future 
marriage  ;  so  that  though  the  testator  w^as 
Townly,  yet  the  lawful  heirs  were  not,  but 
were  called  by  another  name. 

Now,  suppose  that  after  this,  the  condi- 
tions of  the  will  had  been  found  to  be,  as  the 
will  was  in  Euiiland, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  17 

1.  That  if  any  of  the  descendants  were 
unbaptizedj  they  were  to  be  cut  off  from  the 
heirs,  and  consequently  from  the  inheri- 
tance, and  it  was  found  that  half  of  the  de- 
scendants were  actually  unbaptized,  would 
not  any  judge  decide  that  the  estate  belong- 
ed not  to  the  unbaptized,  but  wholly  to  the 
baptized,  for  so  the  testator  had  decreed  ? 
But  suppose 

2.  The  will  further  stated,  that  if  any  of 
those  w^ho  were  baptized  should  not  receive 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  after 
they  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty  years, 
that  then  they  should  be  cut  off  from  the 
number  of  his  heirs  and  forfeit  their  inheri- 
tance. Would  not  a  judge  decide  again, 
that  all  over  twenty  years  who  could  not 
prove  that  they  had  received  the  sacrament, 
tJiough  baptized  had  forfeited  their  part  of  the 
inheritance,  and  that  the  whole  belonged  to 
that  part  of  the  baptized  descendants,  who 
could  prove  that  they  had  received  the  sac- 
rament ?     But  suppose 

3.  The  will  stated  further,  that  all  who 
did  not  receive  the  sacrament  from  the  hand 
of  a  Presbyterian  minister,  though  they  re- 
2* 


18  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENAR[AX. 

ceived  it  from  ministers  of  other  denomina- 
tions, should  forfeit  their  heirship  and  be  cut 
oft',  and  it  was  found  that  many  of  the  bap- 
tized descendants  who  had  received  the  sac- 
rament of  the  Lord's  Supper,  were  not  in 
connection  with  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
and  had  therefore  received  the  sacrament — 
not  from  a  Presbyterian  minister,  but  from 
others.  Would  not  the  judge  again  be  com- 
pelled to  decide  that  all  such  had  forfeited 
their  inheritance,  and  that  the  whole  be- 
longed to  the  few  that  had  not  forfeited  their 
heirship  by  violating  the  conditions  of  the 
will  of  the  testator?  I  think  all  will  admit 
that  the  judge  must  so  decide,  whether  he 
thought  the  will  a  good  one  or  not. 

Now  must  we  not  follow  the  same  rule 
in  examining  the  will  of  our  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour in  which  he  has  bequeathed  rich  lega- 
cies to  Abraham  and  his  seed;  and  if  it  be 
found  that  a  large  part  of  the  descendants 
of  Abraham  have,  by  violating  the  condi- 
tions of  that  will,  forfeited  their  character 
as  heirs,  and  consequently  their  inheritance, 
must  we  not  conclude  that  all  that  is  still 
due  of  those  legacies  belongs  to  that  part  of 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  19 

the  heirs  who  have  not  violated  the  condi- 
tions of  the  will,  by  whatever  name  they 
may  be  called  ?  Why  is  it  not  as  true  in 
the  latter  case  as  in  the  former?  In  this 
conclusion  it  is  thought  all  will  agree. 

In  looking  over  the  will  of  our  Lord, 
among  many  things  a  little  obscure,  the 
following  seem  to  be  plain  in  the  conditions 
of  the  will  as  recorded. 

1.  That  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  un- 
circumcised  man-child  shall  be  cut  off. — 
Gen.  17  :  14. 

2.  That  of  the  circumcised  seed,  Isaac 
shall  alone  be  heir. — Gren.  21 :  12. 

3.  That  of  Isaac's  seed,  Jacob  only  should 
be  heir.— Gen.  27  :  27-29,  and  28 :  10-14. 

4.  That  a  proselyte  from  the  Gentiles, 
who  w^as  circumcised  and  partook  of  the 
Passover  and  had  all  his  males  circumcised, 
was  counted  an  heir  as  one  born  in  the  land. 
See  Exodus  12 :  48. 

5.  That  for  idolatry  and  many  other 
crimes  they  were  to  be  cut  off  from  the  seed 
of  Abraham.— See  Ex.  22  :  20,  &  Lev.  17  : 
9,  10-14,  &  18  :  1-29. 

6.  That  the  man  who,  without  a  specified 


20 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


reason,  should  neglect  to  keep  the  Passover, 
should  be  cut  off  from  the  people  of  God, 
the  heirs  of  the  inheritance  promised  to  the 
seed  of  Abraham,  &c. — See  Num.  9  :  13. 

7.  That  those  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  as 
before  described,  who  should  refuse  to  hear 
and  obey  the  promised  Saviour  when  he 
should  come,  should  be  cut  off  from  the 
people  of  G-od,  and  those  only  who  had  not 
been  cut  off  would  be  counted  for  the  seed 
and  heirs  of  the  promises. — See  Deut.  18  : 
15-19.  Explained  more  fully,  Acts  3:  22, 
23,  &  Gal.  3:  29. 

Now,  if  the  forementioned  conditions  of 
the  will  are  plain,  and  all  who  have  violated 
those  conditions,  and  especially  the  last, 
have  forfeited  their  claim  to  their  inheri- 
tance, then  it  seems  to  follow,  that  in  de- 
termining the  question  who  are  the  lawful 
heirs  to  the  inheritance  promised  to  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  we  must  try  it  by  the  condi- 
tions therein  plainly  specified,  and  especially 
tlie  last,  which  seems  plainest  of  all,  and 
which  we  think  is  fully  explained  by  Christ 
and  his  apostles. 

This  conclusion,  we  think,  is  not  weak- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  21 

ened  by  the  fact,  that  when  the  execution 
of  the  law  was  in  the  hands  of.  or  commit- 
ted to  the  hands  of  fallible  Jews,  the  penal- 
ties of  the  law  were  often  not  executed.  A 
wrong  decision  in  a  lower  court  is  no  reason 
why  a  higher  court  should  not  correct  it  so 
far  as  it  can  be  corrected.  If  the  Jews 
suffered  their  laws  to  be  trampled  upon 
when  the  Lord  committed  to  their  hands 
their  execution,  it  is  no  reason  for  us  to 
suppose  that  when  Christ  takes  in  his  own 
hands  their  execution,  that  he  will  suffer 
the  conditions  of  His  will  to  be  broken  with 
impunity. 

Let  us  then  see  if  we  can  determine  who 
are  now  the  lawful  heirs  to  the  inherit- 
ance promised  and  yet  due  to  the  seed  of 
Abraham. 

We  shall  here  take  it  for  granted  that  all 
the  prophetic  promises  made  to  the  seed  of 
Abraham  and  David,  are  included  in  the 
promise  made  to  Abraham,  and  are  only  re- 
peated and  amplified  by  the  Jewish  prophets. 
Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    II. 

Dear  Sir  : — Let  us  now  see  if  we  can 
determine  who,  at  this  distant  period,  are 
the  heirs  to  the  Abrahamic  will.  Since  Paul 
says,  Rom.  9:  6,  "  They  are  not  all  Israel 
which  are  of  Israel,"  who  then  are  ? 

"When  G-od  first  called  Abraham  from  his 
father's  house,  and  promised  to  bless  him 
and  his  posterity,  there  was  nothing  in  the 
form  of  the  promise  as  recorded,  by  which 
he  could  determine  whether  all  his  children 
were  to  share  in  the  blessings  of  the  pro- 
mise, or  only  a  part  of  them.  The  Lord 
simply  said,  Gen.  12:  2,  ''I  will  make  of  thee 
a  great  nation,  and  I  will  bless  thee  and 
make  thy  name  great,  and  thou  shalt  be  a 
blessing,"  &c.  In  this  general  way  the  pro- 
mise was  first  made,  and,  if  nothing  more 
had  been  said,  we  might  have  been  led  to 
suppose  that  all  the  descendants  of  Abraham 
were  includtid  in  this  promise.    But  the  his- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  23 

tory  of  the  event  shows  that  they  were  not. 
V.  7,  we  are  told  that  after  Abraham  and 
Sarah  had  reached  and  passed  over  a  part  of 
the  land  of  Canaan,  "  The  Lord  appeared 
unto  Abraham,  and  said.  Unto  thy  seed  will 
I  give  this  land" — namely,  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan. Here,  again,  it  would  seem  as  if  all 
were  included.  About  four  years  after  this 
we  are  told,  Gren.  13:  14, 16,  "  the  Lord  said 
unto  Abraham,  Lift  up  now  thine  eyes,  and 
look  from  the  place  where  thou  art,  north- 
ward and  southward,  and  eastward  and 
westward,  for  all  the  land  which  thou  seest 
to  thee  will  I  give  it,  and  to  thy  seed  for- 
ever, and  I  will  make  thy  seed  as  the  dust 
of  the  earth,  so  that  if  a  man  can  number 
the  dust  of  the  earth  then  shall  thy  seed 
also  be  numbered."  Here,  again,  there  is 
nothing  in  the  form  of  the  promise  intimat- 
ing that  any  of  Abraham's  children  would 
be  excluded,  still  less  that  persons  descend- 
ing from  others  should  be  numbered  as  the 
children  or  seed  of  Abraham,  and  yet  the 
history  of  Abraham  seems  to  imply  that 
both  events  happened,  though  as  yet  they 
were  not  revealed.  Ought  not  this  to  teach  us 


Z4:  LETTERS     TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

to  be  cautious  how  we  build  theories  on  pre- 
dictions? 

Again,  Gen.  15:  18,  after  the  Lord  had 
informed  Abraham  that  his  "seed  should  cer- 
tainly be  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  four 
hundred  years,''  we  are  told,  he  "  made  a 
covenant  with  Abraham,  saying,  Unto  thy 
seed  have  I  given  all  this  land,  from  the 
river  of  Egypt  unto  the  great  river  Eu- 
phrates." Still,  no  intimation  is  recorded 
that  any  are  to  be  excluded.  But,  after  the 
birth  of  Isaac,  when  Sarah  complains  of  the 
conduct  of  the  son  of  Ishmael,  Abraham's 
first  born.  Gen.  21:  10,  12,  the  Lord  said 
that  "  The  son  of  the  bond  woman  should  not 
be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free  woman,"  and 
that  "  in  Isaac  his  seed  should  be  called  :" 
and  this  was  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
only  the  descendants  of  Isaac  went  into 
Egypt,  where  the  Lord  had  declared  the 
seed  of  Abraham  should  be  in  bondage,  as 
we  shall  hereafter  see.  Again,  Gen.  17:  19, 
after  God  had  entered  into  a  formal  cove- 
nant with  Abraham  and  his  seed,  to  be  their 
God,  and  to  give  to  them  the  land  of  Canaan, 
of  which  covenant  circumcision  was  to  be 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


25 


the  seal ;  and,  after  declaring  in  the  same 
covenant,  v.  14,  that  the  uncircuracised 
man-child  should  be  cut  off  from  his  peo- 
ple, he  says  again,  "  Sarah  thy  wife  shall 
bear  thee  a  son  indeed,  and  thou  shalt  call 
his  name  Isaac,  and  I  will  establish  my 
covenant  with  him  for  an  everlasting  cove- 
nant, and  with  his  seed  after  him.  As  for 
Ishmael,  I  have  heard  thee  ;  behold,  I  have 
blessed  him,  and  will  make  him  fruitful,  and 
will  multiply  him  exceedingly,  but  my  cove- 
nant will  I  establish  with  Isaac." 

Here  it  is  very  manifest  that  the  covenant 
promise  was  restricted  to  Isaac  alone,  who 
was  not  yet  born,  and  to  his  seed,  though 
Abraham  had  seven  other  sons  after  this,  as 
we  shall  see.  So  that,  from  the  beginning, 
only  a  very  small  part  of  the  natural  descend- 
ants of  Abraham  were  actually  inpluded 
among  the  heirs  to  the  bequests  of  that  will, 
which  bequeathed  such  rich  legacies  to  Abra- 
ham and  his  seed. 

Now,  as  the  general  promise  of  Grod,  to 

give  to  the  seed  of  Abraham  the  whole  land 

of  Canaan,  did  not  prove  that  all  his  children 

were  included,  so  the  promise  to  Isaac  and 

3 


26  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

his  seed  may  not  secure  all  his,  or  even  prove 
that  no  others  will  be  admitted.  We  ask 
then,  again,  who  are  the  heirs  that  can,  at 
this  distant  period,  lay  claim  to  these  rich 
legacies  ?  Were  all  those  who  were  circum- 
cised, heirs? — as  those  who  were  not,  were  to 
be  cut  off.  We  think  not,  for  all  the  males 
in  Abraham's  house  were  circumcised. — See 
Gren.  17  :  23.  Still  this  was  to  be  the  token 
of  the  covenant  between  G-od  and  his  people, 
and  the  man-child  who  was  uncircumcised 
was  to  be  cut  oft';  while  Ishmael,  and  the 
other  six  children  of  Abraham,  though  chil- 
dren, and  circumcised,  were,  for  no  crime 
mentioned,  to  be  cast  off  or  not  reckoned 
among  the  people  of  Grod  :  thus  show^ing 
that  as  yet  we  have  no  definite  rule  by  which 
we  can  determine  who  are  the  seed  and  heirs 
according  to  the  promise,  since  the  great 
mass  were  dropped,  and  not  counted,  and 
only  a  few  counted  from  the  first  promulga- 
tion of  the  promise.  After  this,  in  G-en.  22: 
15-18,  a  little  more  than  twenty  years  later, 
the  Lord  renewed  the  promise  to  Abraham, 
without  any  intimation  that  any  of  Isaac's 
children  were  to  be  excluded.     In  Gen.  25, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  27 

we  have  the  account  of  Abraham's  second 
marriage — "  Then  again  Abraham  took  a 
wife,  whose  name  was  Keturah,"  by  whom 
he  had  six  children,  none  of  whom  are 
counted  among  the  seed  of  Abraham,  as  be- 
fore stated.  In  G-en.  26  :  24,  the  promise  is 
repeated  to  Isaac  :  "  And  the  Lord  appeared 
unto  him  the  same  night,  and  said,  I  am  the 
God  of  Abraham  thy  father,  fear  not,  for  I  am 
with  thee  and  will  bless  thee,  and  will  multi- 
ply thy  seed,  for  my  servant  Abraham's  sake . ' ' 
In  chap.  25  :  23,  we  read,  "  The  Lord  said 
unto  Ptebekah,  Two  nations  are  in  thy  womb, 
and  two  manner  of  people  shall  be  separated 
from  thee,  and  the  one  people  shall  be  strong- 
er than  the  other,  and  the  elder  shall  serve 
the  younger."  Here  we  have  the  first  inti- 
mation that  a  part  of  Isaac's  descendants  are 
to  be  excluded  from  the  heirs  of  promise, 
and  yet  not  so  that  it  could  be  certainly  known 
how  many  of  Isaac's  descendants  should 
be  excluded.  It  was  now  about  eighty- 
five  years  since  the  first  promise  was  made 
to  Abraham,  and  still  as  yet  we  find  no  certain 
rule  by  which  to  determine  who  were  to  be 
the  heirs,  except  as  guided  by  the  successive 


28  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

revelations  given  from  the  Lord  to  the 
fathers.  In  chap.  26 :  3-5,  the  promise 
which  was  made  to  Abraham  is  repeated  to 
Isaac  :  "  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth  be  blessed,"  but  as  yet  it  is  gen- 
eral. In  the  same  chapter,  verses  33-35, 
we  have  the  account  of  Esau  selling  his 
birth-right  to  Jacob  ;  and  chap.  27:  27-9, 
we  have  the  account  of  Isaac  blessing  Jacob, 
and,  by  the  deception  practiced  by  Jacob 
and  his  mother,  giving  him  the  blessing  he 
intended  for  Esau,  but  which  the  Lord  had 
intimated  to  his  mother  was  intended  for 
Jacob,  though  the  younger.  After  this  Esau 
seems  no  longer  counted  among  the  heirs. 
So  that,  in  the  third  generation,  we  find  that 
only  one-sixteenth  part  of  the  children  of 
Abraham  are  actually  counted  as  heirs. 
Who,  then,  at  this  distant  period,  will  ven- 
ture to  say  which  of  Abraham's  descendants 
are  the  lawful  heirs  to  these  promises,  with- 
out the  plain  declarations  of  His  word  or 
will  to  guide  us  ? 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    III. 

Rom.  9 :  6.     For  they  are  not  all  Israel  which  are  of 
Israel. 

Dear  Sir  : — We  have  seen  in  our  previ- 
ous examination,  that  in  the  third  genera- 
tion, only  one  sixteenth  part  of  the  descen- 
dants of  Abraham  were  actually  counted  as 
tlie  heirs  of  the  promise  to  Abraham,  to 
whom  G-od  would  give  the  land  of  Canaan 
— a  very  small  part,  when  yet,  the  promises 
were  as  full  to  them  then,  as  they  are  now 
to  the  seed  of  x\brahara  ;  for  they  were  the 
same,  and  if  these  promises  did  not  prove 
that  all  the  seed  of  Abraham  were  then 
heirs,  how  can  they  prove  that  all  or  any  of 
tliose,  who  now  claim  to  be  descended  from 
Abraham,  are  the  lawful  heirs  ? 

In  following  the  history  of  this  interest- 
ing people,  we  find,  that  as  yet,  there  is  but 
one  of  the  descendants  of  Abraham  who  is 
counted  as  the  seed,  when  it  is  at  least  pro- 
3=^ 


30  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

bable,  that  there  were  at  this  time  hun- 
dreds of  the  descendants  of  Abraham  who 
were  not  counted  as  heirs,  for  it  was  now 
over  130  years  since  the  birth  of  Isaac  ;  and 
the  other  seven  children  of  Abraham  seem 
to  have  increased  much  more  rapidly  at  first, 
than  the  heirs  of  promise.  It  may  be  well 
to  keep  these  facts  in  view,  when  we  read 
some  of  the  later  prophetic  promises  res- 
pecting the  return  of  the  seed  of  Abraham 
to  the  promised  land.  Those  promises  may 
include  only  the  few  who  have  not  incurred 
the  penalty  of  exscision. 

Jacob  is  now  sent  to  Padanaram,  where 
he  serves  fourteen  years  for  two  wives,  and 
besides  them,  he  has  two  concubines,  by  all 
of  whom  he  has  twelve  sons  and  one  daugh- 
ter. On  his  way  back  to  Canaan  and  to  his 
father's  house,  his  name  is  changed  to  Israel, 
by  the  angel  with  whom  he  wrestled,  and 
though  Jacob  and  Esau  seem  now  recon- 
ciled, and  were  together  burying  their  fa- 
ther, yet  we  hear  nothing  of  the  children  of 
Esau  being  included  among  the  people  of 
Grod,  the  heirs  of  promise.  Jacob  and  his 
children  were  henceforth  called  Israelites, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  31 

and  Israel  only  was  the  covenant  people  of 
God.  All  Jacob's  children  seem  now  to  be 
included,  (except  the  daughter  of  whom  we 
hear  no  more  among  Grod's  people,)  though 
six  of  his  sons  were  born  of  a  wife  put 
upon  him  by  deception,  and  four,  of  bond 
women  ;  thus  setting  aside  all  former  rules 
of  counting  heirs,  and  setting  at  defiance 
all  analogical  rules.  These  twelve  sons  in 
process  of  time,  seem  all  to  have  married 
Gentile  wives,  had  families,  and  were  with 
their  father  carried  into  Egypt,  according  to 
the  declaration  of  God  to  Abraham,  Gen.  15  : 
13,  where  they  continued  two  hundred  and 
fifteen  years,  a  part  of  the  time  under  severe 
bondage.  "  And  God  said  unto  Abraham, 
Know  of  a  surety,  that  thy  seed  shall  be  a 
stranger,  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,  and 
shall  serve  them  four  hundred  years."  This 
expression  it  will  be  seen  does  not  accord, 
with  historical  accuracy,  to  the  event — -and 
could  not  possibly  have  been  understood  be- 
fore its  fulfilment.  But  it  seems,  together 
with  the  event  recorded,  a  full  evidence, 
that  those  only  who  were  now  called  Is- 
raelites, and  went  into  bondage,  were  count- 


32 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


ed  for  the  seed  and  heirs  to  the  prom- 
ises. 

And  now,  dear  Sir,  may  we  not  learn 
from  these  historical  sketches,  the  following 
facts,  viz. : 

1st.  That  the  prophetic  promises  made  to 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  were  of  such  a 
general  character,  that  it  will  not  do  to 
explain  them  literally,  as  if  delivered  as 
history  ?  Take,  for  example,  the  promise, 
Gen.  13:  15,  "All  the  land  which  thou  seest, 
to  thee  will  I  give  it,  and  to  thy  seed  for 
ever  ;"  and  yet  he,  Abraham,  never  possess- 
ed any  of  that  land,  except  a  burying  place. 
Do  you  say,  that  he  is  yet  to  be  put  in  po:?- 
session  when  Christ  comes,  and  that  the 
promise  secures  this  to  him  ?  Would  not 
the  same  rule  of  interpretation  lead  us  to 
say  that  all  his  seed,  good  and  bad,  were  to 
be  put  in  possession,  who  died  in  Egypt  and 
in  the  wilderness,  or  before- — not  only  the 
descendants  of  Jacob,  but  of  ail  his  seed  ? 
And  if  not  all,  who  from  the  prediction  could 
tell  how  many  ?  The  same  is  true  of  all 
that  class  of  promises. 

How,  again,  would  it  do  to  give  a  literal 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  33 

interpretation  to  the  prediction,  Gen.  15  : 
18,  "  Know  of  a  surety,  that  thy  seed  shall 
be  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,  and 
shall  serve  them,  and  they  shall  afflict  them 
four  hundred  years  ;  and  also,  that  nation 
whom  they  shall  serve,  will  I  judge,  and  af- 
terward shall  they  come  out  with  great  sub- 
stance ?"  You  will  admit,  that  this  prophecy 
refers  to  their  bondage  in  Egypt.  But  they 
were  only  two  hundred  and  fifteen  years  ia 
Egypt,  and  about  seventy  years  of  that  time, 
they  were  provided  for  by  Joseph,  and  were 
not  actually  in  bondage.  Nor  was  the  whole 
sojourning  of  the  Israelites,  from  the  calling 
of  Abraham  to  their  coming  out  of  Egypt, 
four  hundred  years  ;  for  we  are  told  by 
Moses,  Ex.  12:40,  that  their  sojournings 
were  four  hundred  and  thirty  years.  V.  41. 
"It  came  to  pass  at  the  end  of  four  hundred 
and  thirty  years,  that  all  the  host  of  the 
Lord  went  out  from  the  land  of  Egypt :" 
thus  showing  by  the  history  of  the  event, 
that  a  literal  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy 
was  not  to  be  expected,  and  yet,  that  when 
these  prophecies  were  fulfilled,  they  were 
sufficiently  plain  to  show  that  nothing  but 


34  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

a  God  who  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning, 
could  have  thus  foretold  them,  and  nothing 
but  an  Almighty  G-od  could  have  fulfilled 
them. 

2d.  That  from  the  beginning,  only  a 
small  part  of  the  children  of  Abraham 
were  counted  for  the  seed. 

8d.  AVe  learn,  that  from  the  beginning, 
we  cannot  determine,  that  a  person  is  an 
heir  to  the  promises,  by  the  fact,  that  he 
has  descended  from  Abraham,  since  many 
more  of  his  children  were  always  out  of  the 
covenant  than  in.  It  may  be  well  to  keep 
this  in  mind,  when  we  come  to  the  question, 
are  the  present  Jews  the  heirs  to  any  of 
these  promises  made  to  Abraham,  and  re- 
peated by  the  prophets  ? 

Neither  can  w^e  determine,  that  they  are 
of  Israel,  and  heirs  to  the  promises,  by  the 
fact  of  their  being  circumcised — for  it  is 
certain,  that  many,  if  not  all  those  who 
have  already  been  dropped,  were  circumcis- 
ed, and  so  were  all  the  three  hundred  ser- 
vants of  Abraham.  So  that  from  the  first 
many  more  were    circumcised   who    were 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  35 

not  in  covenant,  and  not  heirs,  than  those 
who  were. 

4th.  We  learn,  also,  that  the  want  of 
being  wholly  descended  from  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  does  not  prove,  that  they  are  not 
heirs — for  we  have  seen,  that  all  the  sons  of 
Jacob,  some  of  whom  were  from  G-entile 
mothers,  married  Gentiles,  and  so  were 
greatly  mixed  ;  and  that  as  soon  as  the  or- 
dinance of  the  Passover  was  instituted,  per- 
mission was  given  for  strangers  to  join  them : 
see  Ex.  12:48,  and  Est.  8:  17,  where 
we  are  told,  that  many  of  the  people  of  the 
land  became  Jews.  So  that,  as  yet,  we 
have  no  rule  by  which  we  can  determine 
prospectively,  who  are  to  be  the  heirs,  but 
must  wait  the  farther  and  later  instruction 
of  the  inspired  writers  ;  which  instructions 
are  doubtless  sufficiently  plain  for  all  im- 
portant practical  purposes,  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning.  But  these  I  must  defer 
for  my  next.  In  the  mean  time,  please 
keep  in  mind  the  results  to  which  we  have 
come,  so  far  as  you  admit  them,  as  they 
may  have  a  bearing  on  what  follows. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    TV. 

Dear  Sir  : — I  again  begin  with  Paul's 
words,  Rom.  9:6:  "  For  they  are  not  all 
Israel  which  are  of  Israel."  Who,  then,  are 
the  true  heirs  ? 

We  have  seen  that  no  answer  can  be  ob- 
tained to  this  question  from  the  prophetic 
promises  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  nor 
yet  from  the  sign  of  circumcision,  and  that 
only  one-sixteenth  part  of  Abraham's  de- 
scendants were  counted  heirs  down  to  the 
time  of  Jacob,  who  was  first  called  by  the 
name  of  Israel ;  and  now  Paul  tells  us  that 
they  are  not  all  Israel  which  are  of  Israel 
even ;  so  that  it  seems  all  his  descendants 
are  not  to  be  counted ;  at  least  Paul's 
words  seem  to  imply  this,  though  perhaps 
this  is  not  their  whole  meaning.  His  twelve 
sons,  however,  for  the  present,  seem  all  to 
be  counted,  and  all  went  with  their  families 
to  Egypt,  even  those  who  were  born  of  the 
bond  women. 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLEXARIAN.  37 

In  tracing  the  history  of  Jacob's  family, 
we  are  led  to  suppose  that  all  their  descen- 
dants who  were  living  at  the  time  of  Moses, 
were  recognized  as  Israelites,  kept  the 
Passover  and  came  out  of  Egypt  by  Moses. 
But  when  the  Lord  instituted  the  ordinance 
of  the  Passover,  he  allowed  them  to  receive 
Grentile  converts  ;  who  then,  I  suppose,  in 
the  language  of  Esther  8:  17,  became 
Jews,  and  intermarried ;  for  there  was 
but  one  law,  and  "he  w^as  to  be  as  one 
born  in  the  land."— Ex.  12:  43-49.— 
"  This,  said  the  Lord,  is  the  law  of  the 
Passover  :  there  shall  no  stranger  eat  of  it : 
but  every  man's  servant,  when  thou  hast 
circumcised  him,  then  shall  he  eat  thereof: 
and  when  a  stranger  shall  sojourn  with  you, 
and  will  keep  the  Passover  to  the  Lord,  let 
all  his  males  be  circumcised,  and  then  let 
him  come  near  and  keep  it,  and  he  shall  be 
as  one  that  is  born  in  the  land."  This  sure- 
ly seems  to  imply  that  they  might  receive 
Grentiles,  and  when  received  they  were 
counted  as  Jews.  How  many  such  were 
received,  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 
We  have  also  the  fact,  Ex.  12  :  19,  that  if 
4 


•38  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

any  eat  unleavened  bread  daring  the  seven 
(lays  following  the  Passover,  he  was  to  be 
•cut  off  from  that  people.  So  that  from  the 
first  complete  organization  of  the  Jewish 
Church  we  find  only  a  small  part  of  the 
descendants  of  Abraham  in  it,  and  those 
mingled  with  Gentile  converts,  and  that 
■Jews,  for  want  of  circumcision,  &c.,  were 
cut  off.  How  many  converts  were  received, 
•or  how  many  of  the  Israelites  were  cut  off 
by  the  two  exscinding  laws,  we  have  no 
imeans  of  determining. 

After  the  complete  organization  of  the 
Jewish  Church,  none  were  recognized  as 
belonging  to  the  heirs  of  promise,  who  were 
•not  in  that  church,  whether  Jews  or  of  G-en- 
tile  origin,  while  all  who  were  in  it  were 
'Counted  heirs.  "We  now  find  about  twenty 
daws  recorded  by  Moses  for  the  violation  of 
Nwhich  they  were  to  be  cut  off  from  the 
■promised  seed,  from  the  people  of  God,  from 
his  church.  When  we  read  the  history  of 
the  crimes  of  the  Jews  after  this,  we  are 
led  to  suppose  that  many  must  have  forfeited 
their  standing  in  the  church,  but  we  will 
not   anticipate.     We   have   now  the  plain 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  39 

fact,  that  those  regularly  in  the  church  were 
counted  for  Israel,  and  none  else,  and  the 
laws  of  the  church  follow. 

When  we  follow  them  to  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan and  see  them  there  for  four  hundred 
and  sixteen  years  governed  by  judges  of  the 
Lord's  appointment,  and  see  how  often  they 
transgressed  their  laws  and  were  punished 
for  their  sins,  we  have  some  reason  to  think 
that  many  of  them  were  even  now  cut  off, 
or  at  least  that  they  incurred  the  penalty, 
and  that  they  were  still  not  all  Israel  which 
were  of  Israel. 

We  at  length  hear  them  asking  for  a 
king,  1  Sam.  8:  5  and  7  :  when  the  Lord 
said  of  them  to  Samuel  in  answer  to  his 
complaint,  "  They  have  not  rejected  thee, 
but  they  have  rejected  me,  that  I  should  not 
reign  over  them  ;"  implying  it  may  be  the 
kind  of  reigning  to  which  the  prophets  re- 
fer, when  they  speak  of  Christ  reigning  on 
earth  over  the  seed  of  Abraham  in  the  latter 
day,  so  that  we  may  know  the  kind  of  rule 
He  will  exercise  when  we  have  found  who 
are  the  seed  and  lawful  heirs. 

After  the  days  of  Solomon,  the  nation  of 


40  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

Israel  divided  into  two  kingdoms  or  parties: 
ten  tribes  followed  Jeroboam,  the  son  of 
Nebat,  while  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  the 
few  that  remained  of  Benjamin,  followed 
Rehoboam,  the  son  of  Solomon,  the  rightful 
heir  of  David  and  of  the  kingdom.  War 
ensued,  and  the  division  became  permanent, 
the  one  party  following  thfe  descendants  of 
David  their  king,  and  the  other  Jeroboam 
and  his  successors,  till  the  opposers  of  the 
sons  of  David,  who,  as  a  nation,  had  by  their 
idolatry  in  setting  up  the  golden  calves,  and 
refusing  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  to  keep  the 
Passover,  and  by  many  other  sins  incurred 
the  penalty  of  exscision  from  the  people  of 
God,  were  carried  away  captive  by  the  As- 
syrians and  mingled  among  the  G-entiles  till 
they  were  lost,  and  as  a  nation  disowned  of 
the  Lord,  and  have  not  since  been  found. — 
See  1  Kings  12,  to  2  Kings,  17th  chapter, 
especially  the  first  and  last  chapters  men- 
tioned. So  they  are  not  yet  all  Israel  v/hich 
are  of  Israel. 

This  total  casting  off  of  the  ten  tribes  of 
Israel,  about  850  years  after  Saul  was  made 
king,  was  threatened  or  foretold,  1  Kings,  14  . 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  41 

15,  and  seems  to  have  been  the  legitimate 
penalty  of  the  laws  which  they  had  violated 
as  a  nation  by  setting  up  idols  and  depart- 
ing from  the  true  God,  and  marks  a  new  era 
in  the  history  of  Israel.  The  ten  tribes, 
however,  claimed  the  name  of  Israel,  the 
name  of  all  before. 

This  is  not  mere  conjecture.  They  had 
violated  the  law,  the  penalty  of  which  was 
exscision,  and  when  the  Lord  took  the  exe- 
cution of  it  in  his  own  hands,  we  are  told, 
2  Kings,  17:  15-21,  ''They  rejected  his 
statutes  and  his  covenant,  which  he  made 
with  their  fathers,  and  his  testimonies  which 
he  testified  against  them  ;  and  they  left  all 
the  commandments  of  the  Lord  their  G-od, 
and  made  them  molten  images,  even  two 
calves,  and  made  a  grove,  and  worshipped  all 
the  host  of  heaven  ;''  and  v.  18  :  ''  Therefore 
the  Lord  was  very  angry  with  Israel,  and 
removed  them  out  of  his  sight.  There  was 
none  left  but  the  tribe  of  Judah  only." 

This  seems  plain.     All  were  cast  out  of 

the  sight  of  the  Lord  but  the  tribe  of  Judah 

only.     By  which  name  the  heirs  of  promise 

seem   after   this   to    have   been    generally 

4* 


42  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

known,  though  the  name  was  now  conven- 
tional from  the  name  of  that  tribe,  while 
the  exscinded  tribes  claimed  the  old  name, 
and  to  be  the  true  heirs.  This  act  of  exscis- 
ion  was  not  executed  until  there  had  been 
abundant  time  for  all  who  did  not  in  heart 
fall  in  with  the  idolatry  of  the  nation  of 
Israel  to  come  out  from  among  them  and  to 
join  themselves  with  the  tribe  of  Judah. 
This  many  of  them  did  as  soon  as  Jeroboam 
set  up  his  calves. — See  2  Chron.  11 :  13,  IG, 
"And  the  priests  and  the  Levites  that 
were  in  all  Israel  resorted  to  him  (Reho- 
boam)  out  of  all  their  coasts,  and  after  them 
out  of  all  the  tribes  of  Israel,  such  as  set 
their  hearts  to  seek  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel,  came  to  Jerusalem  to  sacrifice 
unto  the  Lord  God  of  their  fathers.  So 
they  strengthened  the  kingdom  of  Judah.'- 
So  that  all  the  tribes  of  Israel  were  nov7 
represented  and  included  in  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  Benjamin  having  before  been  with 
them.  After  this  falling  of  a  part  of  all  the 
tribes  to  Judah,  we  find  that  during  the 
good  reigns  of  Asa  and  Hezekiah,  many 
others  of  the  ten  tribes  fell  to  Judah,  which 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  43 

seems  to  justify  the  frequent  allusion  of  the 
Prophets  to  Israel  and  Judah  and  all  the 
tribes  after  this  date,  and  after  the  nation 
of  Israel — the  ten  tribes — were  no  longer 
counted  as  the  covenant  people  of  G-od.  But 
in  general,  the  heirs  of  Abraham,  and  of  all 
the  rich  legacies  bequeathed  through  him, 
were  now  called  Jews — a  mere  conventional 
name — and  not  Israel. 

This  view  seems  confirmed  by  the  fact, 
that  it  is  now  more  than  2,500  years  since 
their  cutting  off,  and  so  effectual  has  been 
that  casting  off  of  them  out  of  his  sight, 
that  they  have  never  since  been  found, 
though  great  efforts  have  been  made  in 
searching  the  whole  earth  to  see  if  possible 
where  they  were  settled.  But  they  have  not 
been  found,  and  no  wonder,  for,  if  they  are 
cast  out  of  the  sight  of  the  Lord  so  as  to  be 
no  longer  his  covenant  people,  they  will  not 
be  seen  by  the  eyes  of  men.  The  heirs, 
then,  are  now  to  be  found  only  among  those 
who  are  amalgamated  with  the  tribe  of  Ju- 
dah, and  are  generally  called  Jews.  But 
frequently  the  Prophets  still  speak  of  the 
whole  house  of  Israel  and  Judah ;  and  James 


44  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

addresses  his  epistle  in  the  New  Testament 
to  the   twelve   tribes   of  Israel ;    thus,  we 
think,  showing  that  all  Israel   and   Judah 
that  would  ever  be  found,  was  now  among 
the  Jews,  and   that  henceforth    we   are   to 
look  to  the  Jews  alone,  in  distinction  from 
Israel,  for  the  lawful  heirs  of  Abraham  and 
David.     It  may  be  well  to  add  here,  that  it 
is  not  remembered  by  the  writer  of  these 
letters,  that  when  the  nation  of  Israel  were 
warned  by  the  Prophets  of  their  destruction 
by   the  Assyrians,  that  they  ever  intimated 
that  as  a  nation  they  would  be  restored,  (as 
in   the  case   of  Judah),  but  only  that  rem- 
nants would    return,   such    as   referred  to. 
The  frequent  allusion  to  the  whole  house  of 
Israel  is  not  thought  to  be  an  exception  to 
this,  for    Judah,  with  the  remnant  of  the 
other  tribes,  now  compose   the  whole  house 
of  Israel,  both  Israel  and  Judah.     The  his- 
tory of  Judah  I  must  defer  for  the  present. 
This,  I    think,  we    may   now  safely  lay 
down  as  our  future  rule  of  examination  till 
the  death  of  Christ,  that  all  who  were  regu- 
larly in  the  Jewish  church  after  its  complete 
organization,  were  counted  Israel — the  seed 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  45 

of  Abraham  and  heirs  of  the  promises,  and 
none  others.  Let  us  now  proceed  on  this 
principle. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER   Y. 

Bear  Sir  : — If  the  preceding  views  are 
right,  then  we  are  henceforth  to  look  to  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  and  the  remnants  amalga- 
mated with  them,  alone  for  the  lawful  heirs 
of  Abraham  and  David,  and  the  promises 
made  to  them.  But,  are  they  all  heirs? 
This  is  the  question  still  before  us.  Perhaps 
they  are  not  yet  all  Israel  which  are  of  Is- 
rael, for  Paul  says,  "  He  is  not  always  a  Jew 
which  is  one  outwardly ;"  and  John,  "I  know 
the  blasphemy  of  them  that  say  they  are 
Jews  and  are  not." 

In  tracing  the  history  of  the  tribe  of  Ju- 
dah, we  find  that  they  also  greatly  departed 
from  the  Lord,  and,  about  125  years  after 
the  casting  off  of  Israel,  Judah  was  over- 
come, and  a  part  of  them  led  captive,  and 
about  eleven  years  after  that,  Jerusalem  was 
taken,  and  their  beautiful  temple  destroyed, 
and  the  Jews  greatly  scattered,  "through  the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  47 

anger  of  the  Lord"  for  their  sins  for  which  he 
cast  them  out  of  his  presence,  2  Kings  24 : 
20, — not  out  of  his  sight,  as  he  did  Israel. 
He  cast  them  out  of  Jerusalem  and  the  tem- 
ple, the  place  where  he  manifested  his  pre- 
sence, but  not  before  he  had  often  warned 
them  of  this,  as  the  consequence  of  their  sin, 
preceded  and  accompanied  by  many  predic- 
tive promises  that  after  he  had  chastised 
them  and  the  land  had  enjoyed  her  violated 
Sabbaths,  at  the  end  of  seventy  years  he 
would,  in  answer  to  their  prayers,  open  the 
way  for  their  return.  And  so  particular  was 
the  Lord  in  giving  them  this  information  for 
their  encouragement,  that  he  caused  it  to  be 
stated  by  the  historian,  2  Chron.  86:  22,  and 
by  Jeremiah  several  times,  even  naming  the 
person  by  whom  they  were  to  be  set  at  li- 
berty, while,  of  the  ten  tribes  carried  away 
by  the  Assyrians,  the  Lord  said  that  he 
would  cut  them  off  head  and  tail,  branch 
and  rush,  in  one  day,  with  no  intimation  of 
their  return :  thus  intimating  the  total  and 
irrevocable  destruction  of  the  ten  tribes,  as 
a  people,  while  individuals,  or  remnants, 
might  return  to  Judah,  who  were  the  only 


48  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN, 

people  in  covenant  with  Grod,  and  conse- 
quently the  only  heirs  to  the  covenant  pro- 
raises  to  Abraham  and  David. 

Of  thei  JevN^s,  it  was  distinctly  said,  when 
it  was  predicted  that  they  would  be  led  cap- 
tive to  Babylon  for  their  sins,  that  at  the 
end  of  seventy  years  they  should  be  brought 
back,  and  that  Cyrus,  though  then  not  yet 
born,  should  be  the  person  that  would  set 
them  free,  and  that  others  would  aid  them 
in  their  return.  Many  other  predictions 
were  uttered  in  reference  to  that  return — the 
building  of  the  second  temple  and  down  to  the 
coming  and  death  of  the  Saviour,  showing 
the  great  interest  that  the  Lord  had  in  them 
as  his  church;  while  the  others  seem  to  be 
wholly  unnoticed,  except  those  who  had  re- 
turned, and  were  connected  with  that  tribe. 
The  glory  of  the  second  temple,  though  the 
house  was  far  inferior,  was  to  be  greater 
than  the  first,  Hag.  2  :  9 — doubtless  because 
of  the  presence  of  the  promised  Messiah  and 
king,  the  son  of  David,  taking  possession  of 
his  own  house. 

In  this  division  of  the  tribes  of  Israel,  we 
see  again,  as  in  the  family  of  Abraham, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  49 

many  more  were  dropped  out  of  the  cove- 
nant, or  rather  exscmded,  than  were  kept  in. 
The  bearing  of  this  fact,  though  somewhat 
collateral,  may  hereafter  be  seen  in  the  pro- 
gress of  this  investigation. 

Whether  you  admit  all  the  previous  views 
or  not,  you  will  admit  that  during  the  period 
of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  the  lawful 
heirs  were  to  be  found  in  the  church  as  then 
organized,  whether  descended  wholly  from 
Abraham,  or  from  converts  introduced,  and 
intermarried  as  many  had,  and  not  among 
those  who  had  been  cut  off  for  crimes,  suf- 
fering the  penalty  of  their  exscinding  laws. 

We  nov/  advance  one  step  further,  and, 
passing  over  the  last  540  years,  including  the 
return  spoken  of  by  the  prophets  between  the 
70  years  and  the  coming  of  Christ,  we  come 
down  to  the  time  of  John  the  Baptist.  Here 
we  see  a  new  division,  commencing  under 
John,  but  modified  and  made  permanent 
under  Christ.  When  John  came  preaching 
repentance  and  baptism,  and  proclaiming 
that  Christ  had  come,  he  did  it  only  to  Jews. 
But  all  did  not  believe.  The  part  that  be- 
lieved were  called  the  disciples  of  John,  and 
5 


50  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

the  others  Jews,  though  all  were  alike  Jews. 
Jew  and  disciple  became  therefore  again 
strictly  conventional  nanaes,  and  could  not 
at  all  determine  who  were  the  true  Jews, 
if  one  party  only  was. 

After  John  had  actually  introduced  Christ 
as  the  Lamb  of  G-od,  that  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,  and  had  taught  the  people 
that  this  was  that  prophet  of  whom  Moses 
spake,  and  of  whom  many  of  the  prophets 
had  spoken,  and  who  was  to  descend  from 
David,  and  was  to  reign  over  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  he  set  him  apart  to  his  work  by 
baptism.  Christ  immediately  began  to 
preach,  and  to  teach  the  true  meaning  of 
their  own  laws.  In  doing  this,  he  spake  as 
one  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes. 
For,  as  High  Priest  regularly  set  apart  of 
God,  he  had  a  right  to  teach.  But,  besides 
this,  he  spake  with  absolute  certainty  as  to 
the  true  meaning  of  their  laws.  So  that  he 
gave  them  rules  of  life  under  their  own  laws, 
and  claimed  for  himself  to  be  their  Messiah, 
who,  according  to  their  own  Scriptures,  was 
to  be  their  future  king,  while  as  yet  he  was 
obedient  to  their  laws,  and  made  no  new 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  51 

laws.  Still,  his  explanations  of  their  laws, 
and  the  rules  of  life  inculcated  under  them, 
seemed  to  the  Jews,  when  placed  beside  the 
teachings  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  like 
new  laws  and  new  rules. 

To  these  rules  and  to  this  teaching  the 
larger  part  of  the  Jewish  Church,  as  then 
constituted,  refused  to  submit,  declaring  that 
he  was  an  impostor,  while  another  part  of  that 
people  owned  him  as  their  rightful  sovereign, 
the  predicted  son  of  David,  who  was  to  reign 
over  them  ;  and  now  the  division,  com- 
menced under  John  somewhat  modified,  is 
renewed  :  one  party,  though  the  smaller, 
again  receive  Christ  as  the  Lord  and  King, 
the  other  saying,  We  will  not  have  this  man 
to  reign  over  us,  for  we  have  no  king  but 
Csesar.  A  war,  at  least  of  persecution,  soon 
commenced,  so  violent  that  the  two  parties 
were  permanently  separated,  as  much'  as 
under  Jeroboam  and  Rehoboam,  or  as  Jew 
and  Gentile,  and  have  never  since  reunited, 
except  so  far  as  converts  from  those  under 
Caesar  have  come  over  to  those  on  the  side  of 
Christ  ;  and,  such  is  the  nature  of  their  dif- 
ferent views,  that  no  other  union   can  be 


52  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  . 

formed .  Hence  they  are  as  effectually  divid- 
at  this  day  as  they  were  when  Christ  was 
in  the  world.  Keep  in  mind  that  this  divi- 
sion was  not  between  the  Jews  and  Gren- 
tiles,  but  between  the  Jews  themselves,  as 
much  so  as  that  between  the  ten  tribes  and 
Judah,  and  such  a  division  that  the  one 
party  only  could  be  the  lawful  heirs  of  the 
promises  made  to  Abraham  and  David. 
Which,  then,  of  these  two  parties  vrere  the 
true  successors  and  lawful  heirs  ?  "Were 
those  Jews  who  rejected  the  Saviour,  and 
said,  We  have  no  king  but  Ccesar,  the  lawful 
heirs  ?  or  those  Jews  who  believed  in  and 
received  Christ  as  the  true  Messiah,  their 
rightful  sovereign,  the  predicted  king  of  the 
Jews,  the  son  of  David  ?  Which  of  these 
parties  forfeited  their  inheritance,  as  Esau 
did,  by  selling  his  birthright?  To  this  I 
think  the  Scriptures  give  a  definite  answer  ; 
but  I  must  defer  it  to  my  next. 

Yours,  &c., 

A.  W. 


LETTER    VI. 

Dear  Sir  : — In  my  last  we  followed  the 
history  of  the  Jews  down  to  the  time  of  their 
permanent  division  into  two  parties,  under 
Christ  and  Coesar.  Here  we  see  the  one 
party  denouncing  Christ  as  an  impostor, 
who  ought  not  to  live,  and  joining  with  the 
unbelieving  Gentiles  in  reviling  and  ])erse- 
cuting  him,  and  finally  in  putting  him  to 
death ;  the  other  receiving  him  as  their 
long  promised,  long  expected  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour. We  ask  here,  again,  Did  those  Jews 
who  received  him  as  their  promised  Saviour, 
and  who  carefully  followed  and  obeyed  him, 
though  often  at  great  sacrifices,  thereby  for- 
feit their  character  as  Jews,  and  their  claim 
as  heirs  to  the  promises  made  to  Abraham 
and  his  seed  ;  and,  did  the  other  party,  who 
called  him  an  impostor,  and  who  joined  in  per- 
secuting and  putting  to  death  the  Son  of  God, 

thereby  secure  to  themselves  and  their  ohil- 
5# 


54  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

clren  forever  all  those  rich  legacies  which 
were  yet  due  by  covenant  promise  to  the 
lawful  heirs  of  Abraham  ?  Can  you  sup- 
pose that  the  forfeiture  fell  upon  that  party, 
though  for  the  present  the  smaller,  who 
obeyed  the  Saviour,  and  owned  him  as  their 
promised  deliverer  ?  and  that  the  party  who 
rejected  him  as  an  impostor,  and  continued 
to  rebel  against  him  after  his  resurrection, 
by  that  rebellion  secured  to  themselves  and 
their  children  these  rich  promised  legacies 
from  that  very  Saviour  who  had  bequeathed 
these  legacies,  and  who  has  risen  to  be  the 
executor  of  his  own  will  ?  Would  not  this 
be  rather  a  strange  conclusion  ?  That  such 
an  act  of  rebellion,  against  their  rightful 
sovereign,  should  be  followed  by  such  rich 
blessings,  and  that  the  obedience  and  love 
ofthe  disciples  of  Christ,  and  the  thousands 
of  others  who,  during  the  preaching  of  the 
Apostles,  fell  to  him,  and  owned  him  as  their 
Saviour,  should  be  followed  by  such  fearful 
forfeiture  to  themselves  and  their  children? 
At  least,  this  is  not  the  way  in  which  vic- 
tors commonly  reward  their  friends  and  ene- 
mies, and   you    can   hardly  maintain    that 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  55 

Christ  will  really  so  reward  his  friends  and 
enemies  ;  and  yet  such  was  the  nature  of 
that  division,  that  you  will  admit  that  both 
parties  could  not  after  this  be  the  heirs  of 
all  the  rich  legacies  yet  due  to  the  lawful 
heirs  of  Abraham,  for  they  were  even  more 
diverse  than  Jew  and  G-entile.  Besides,  the 
believing  Jews,  under  the  direction  of  their 
acknowledged  Lord,  ceased  to  circumcise 
^their  children,  and  to  keep  the  Passover,  in- 
termarried with  believing  Gentiles,  and  be- 
came one  with  them,  so  that  if  the  present 
scattered  people  calling  themselves  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  are  the, heirs,  then  the  others 
must,  in  some  way,  have  forfeited  their 
claim,  and  lost  their  inheritance.  Hence 
the  question  is  fairly  before  us,  which  of 
these  parties  are  the  lawful  heirs  to  the  be- 
quests made  of  the  Lord  to  Abraham  and  his 
seed  ? 

Must  you  not  admit,  in  the  absence  of 
any  other  testimony,  that  the  probability 
seems  strongly  in  favor  of  those  who  believed 
in,  and  followed  the  son  of  David,  and  obeyed 
him  as  their  lawful  sovereign,  and  against 
those  who  said  we  will  not  have  this  man  to 


56  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

reign  over  us,  for  we  have  no  king  but 
Caesar,  and  who  still  say  the  same  ?  For, 
as  yet,  both  parties  were  Jews,  both  were 
circumcised,  both  kept  the  Passover,  for  no 
change  was  made  in  the  Jewish  economy  or 
law,  till  after  the  death  of  Christ,  so  that 
both  parties  had  equal  claims  in  that  res- 
pect. 

But  what  seems  thus  strongly  probable, 
from  their  position,  we  think,  is  made  abso- 
lutely certain  by  the  teachings  of  Moses, 
Christ  and  the  apostles,  to  which  teachings 
we  now  turn. 

Passing,  for  the  present,  over  the  obscure 
prediction  of  Noah,  Gren.  9  :  27,  '  That  the 
time  would  come  when  Japheth  should  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  Shem,'  and  the  law  of  Moses, 
Deut.  18  :  15-19,  we  will  first  turn  to  the 
teachings  of  Christ. 

When  Christ  began  to  teach,  he  seems  to 
have  assumed  no  more  than  princely  author- 
ity, for  being  made  under  the  law,  he  was 
as  yet  a  subject  of  the  law,  as  other  men. 
After  being  publicly  pointed  out,  and  set 
apart  by  John  as  their  Saviour,  he  began  to 
teach,  and  gave  them  rules  to  regulate  their 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  57 

conduct  under  the  Jewish  law;  but,  as  yet, 
he  repealed  no  law^s.  He  spake  indeed  as 
one  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes, 
who  pretended  to  be  no  more  than  imperfect 
expounders  of  their  law  ;  but  Christ' spake 
as  one  who  knew  perfectly  the  meaning  of 
their  laws,  and  what  they  were  bound  to  do, 
as  the  people  of  G-od.  His  disciples  admitted 
that  he  had  a  right  so  to  do,  and  so  do  we, 
and  all  Christians,  because  he  knew  per- 
fectly the  meaning  of  their  laws.  But 
if  he  had  a  right  to  give  rules  to  a  part  of 
the  Jews,  had  he  not  to  all?  And  can  it  be 
that  those  Jews  who  rejected  Christ  and  his 
expositions  of  the  law  and  their  duty  under 
it,  and  who  are  now  called  Jews,  by  a  sort 
of  common  consent,  would  have  lost  their 
character  as  Jews  and  heirs  of  the  promises, 
if  they  had  obeyed  him  who  had  a  right  to 
rule  in  that  way,  when  it  was  their  duty  to 
obey  him  as  their  prince,  who  was  to  be 
their  future  king  ?  And  if  ninety-nine  out 
of  one  hundred  had  obeyed  him,  would  the 
rest  have  been  the  only  true  Israelites,  and 
all  the  others,  because  they  did  just  what 
Christ  said  was  their  duty  to  do,  have  been 


58 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


cut  off?  This  can  hardly  be, — for  obedience 
to  Christ  never  has  separated  any  from  the 
promises  of  God,  while  disobedience  has  al- 
ways tended  to  it. 

But  let  us  hear  what  Christ  says  on  this 
subject  ;  for,  during  his  stay  in  the  world, 
he  often  refers  to  it,  though  he  did  not  for- 
mally set  up  his  kingdom  till  after  his  resur- 
rection, when  the  Jewish  law,  having  been 
fulfilled,  ended,  and  all  distinctions  between 
Jew  and  G-entile  seemed  to  cease.  While 
in  the  world,  Christ  says  to  his  opposers, 
Mat.  21  :  43,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  shall 
be  taken  from  you  and  given  to  a  nation 
bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof."  This  seems 
to  be  intended  as  the  exposition  of  the  pre- 
ceding parable,  in  which  he  represents  him- 
self and  his  disciples  as  one  party,  and  his 
enemies  as  the  other,  as  the  Pharisees  seem 
to  admit  in  verse  45.  They  perceived  that 
he  spake  of  them. 

Again,  Luke  19:  12-27:  In  the  parable 
of  the  nobleman  who  went  into  a  far  coun- 
try to  receive  for  himself  a  kingdom,  and  to 
return,  Christ  seems  to  imply  that  those  cit- 
izens who  Iiated  him,  and  sent  a   message 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  59 

after  him,  saying,  we  will  not  have  this  man 
to  reign  over  us,  would,  after  that,  be  cut 
off  from  all  the  blessings  of  his  reign  when 
the  nobleman  should  return  ;  for,  after  the 
king  is  represented  as  having  finished  call- 
ing his  servants  to  account,  those  who  pro- 
fessed to  own  him  king,  both  good  and  bad, 
he  adds,  '  But  those,  mine  enemies,  who 
would  not  have  me  to  reign  over  them, 
bring  hither  and  slay  them  before  me.'  Was 
not  this  nobleman  Christ,  and  were  not  the 
servants  professed  believers,  and  were  not 
these  citizens  those  Jews  who  hated  him  ? 
Now  if  they  were  to  be  slain,  it  does  not 
look  like  an  intimation  that  they  were  here- 
after to  be  the  exclusive  heirs  to  the  legacies 
bequeathed  to  Abraham  and  his  seed,  when 
the  king  should  return,  but  rather  that,  like 
Esau,  they  had  forfeited  all  claim  to  the 
character  of  God's  peculiar  people. 

This  controversy  between  the  two  parties 
continued  during  the  life  of  Christ,  without 
any  absolute  separation,  for  as  yet,  both 
parties  kept  the  laws  of  Moses,  as  Christ 
himself  did,  and  taught  all  others  to  do  it. 
But  the  night  in  which  Christ  was  betray- 


60  LETTERS    TO   A    MILLENARIAN. 

ed,  and  just  before  that  event,  He  eats  the 
last  Passover  with  his  disciples,  and  then 
puts  an  end  to  that  part  of  the  Jewish  in- 
stitution, by  establishing  the  Lord's  Supper 
in  its  stead,  in  anticipation  of  his  death, 
which  was  soon  to  take  place  ;  which  sacra- 
ment was  to  be  kept  by  his  followers,  till 
his  second  coming.  "As  often  as  ye  eat  this 
bread,  and  drink  this  cup,  ye  do  show  the 
Lord's  death  till  he  come."  He  then  dies, 
and  by  that  offering,  puts  an  end  to  all  the 
bloody  sacrifices  of  the  Jewish  economy, 
which  were  typical  of  his  sufferings.  I 
came  not,  says  Christ,  to  destroy  the  law, 
but  to  fulfil.  After  three  days  he  rose  again, 
and  returning  to  his  disciples,  directed 
them  to  go  and  preach  the  gospel  to  all 
nations,  beginning  at  Jerusalem,  (where,  ac- 
cording to  the  prophets,  Christ  was  to  begin 
his  reign,)  and  to  baptize  in  his  name  all 
who  believed,  and  thus  seal  them  as  sub- 
jects of  his  kingdom.  And  did  not  Christ 
here  begin  his  reign  over  the  house  of  Israel 
and  of  Judah  ? — not  over  those  who  rejected 
him,  and  thereby  incurred  the  penalty  of 
exscision,  and  were  no  more  of  Israel — but 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


61 


over  his  friends,  who  were  now  all  that 
were  left  after  that  "diminishing  of  them" 
of  which  Paul  speaks,  Rom.  11  :  12,  of  the 
house  of  Israel  and^Judah,  though  many  of 
the  other  tribes  soon  fell  to  him,  as  they  did 
from  the  ten  tribes  to  Judah  in  the  days  of 
Jeroboam  ? 

But  did  Christ  here  begin  his  personal 
reign  over  Israel  ? 

Let  us  see  how  far  he  changed  his  course 
of  conduct,  after  his  resurrection,  toward 
his  people,  and  try  to  determine  whether 
Christ  did  now  actually  assume  regal  autho- 
rity. During  his  lifetime  he  acted  as  a 
prince  under  the  laws  of  Moses,  to  which  laws 
he  was  perfectly  obedient,  but  he  taught 
that  a  "  certain  nobleman  went  into  a  far 
country  to  receive  for  himself  a  kingdom, 
and  to  return  ;"  in  allusion,  it  may  be,  to  the 
customs  of  subordinate  kings,  who  were 
heirs  to  vacant  thrones,  going  to  Rome  to 
have  their  title  to  the  kingdom  confirmed. 
And  this  nobleman  (we  suppose)  referred  to 
himself  returning  after  his  resurrection. 
But  did  he  after  his  resurrection  assume  and 
exercise  regal  powers,  or  any  powers  which 
6 


62  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

he  did  not  before  ?  As  the  answer  to  this 
question  has  an  important  bearing  on  some 
other  facts  in  the  history  of  this  interest- 
ing people  (because  as  yet  the  people  of 
Grod,)  as  well  as  on  the  question  before  us  of 
inheritance,  it  may  be  well  to  examine  it 
with  some  care. 

Until  Christ  had  eaten  the  last  Passover, 
he  introduced  no  change  in  the  Jewish  wor- 
ship. He  was  as  carefully  obedient  to  every 
part  of  the  Mosaic  ritual,  as  any  other  man, 
but  after  that,  and  just  before  his  death, 
he  instituted  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  direct- 
ed his  disciples  to  keep  it  in  remembrance 
of  him  and  of  his  death,  by  which  he  seems 
to  abolish  the  Passover. 

After  his  resurrection,  when  he  met  his 
disciples  in  Galilee,  '  where  Jesus  had  ap- 
pointed them,'  Jesus  came  and  spake  unto 
them,  saying,  ''All  power  is  given  unto  me, 
in  heaven  and  in  earth."  How  different  this, 
from  his  language  when  he  said,  'Who 
made  me  a  judge  and  a  divider  over  you  V 
Here,  he  claims  absolute  power,  not  in  sub- 
jection to  the  powers  that  be,  but  over  them. 
*'  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  63 

inearth."   And  to  show  that  he  is  not  any 
longer  subject  to  the   laws  of  Moses,   but 
acting  as  that  prophet,  whom  Moses  said, 
the  Lord  would  raise  up  like   unto   Moses, 
and  whom  the   Jews  were  to  obey  at  the 
peril  of  being  destroyed  from  the  people  of 
Grod,  Acts  3  :  22,  he   virtually  repeals  the 
entire  Jewish  ritual,  and  says  to  his  disci- 
ples, "G-o  ye  therefore"  in  obedience  to  my 
command,"  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing 
them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Gfhost,  teaching  them  to 
observe" — not  the  Jewish  ceremonial  laws, 
as  heretofore  required, — but  "  whatsoever  I 
have  commanded  you."     Before  this,  when 
he  sent  his  twelve  disciples  to  go  and  preach 
and  heal,  Mat.  10  :  5,  he  said,  '^  Go  not  into 
the  way  of  the  G-entiles,  and  into  any  city 
of  the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not."     For  then 
he  was  under  the  Mosaic  laws,  which  limit- 
ed them  to  the  Jews  alone,  but  not  so  now. 
He  now  institutes  the  gospel  dispensation, 
which  was  certainly  a  virtual  repeal  of  the 
whole  Mosaic  ritual.     So  the   Scribes   and 
Pharisees  understood  it,  and  hence  their  bit- 
ter opposition.     No  man  could  after  this  be 


64  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

a  follower  of  Christ,  and  yet  be  a  Jew  in 
the  sense  of  the  present  Jews.  He  must 
lose  the  one  or  other  character.  Christ  be- 
gins his  reign  by  breaking  down  the  parti- 
tion wall  between  Jew  and  G-entile,  and 
sending  his  disciples  over  the  wall  to  preach 
to  the  Gentiles  as  well  as  to  the  Jews,  com- 
manding all  to  believe  in  him,  as  their  pro- 
mised Saviour  and  king,  and  to  obey  all  his 
commands.  He  commands  them  to  baptize 
their  disciples,  and  to  keep  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per instead  of  circumcise,  and  keep  the 
Passover.  You  are  now  to  regard  my  word, 
and  not  the  law  of  Moses,  as  the  rule  of 
your  conduct,  and  to  teach  all  others  to  do 
the  same,  and  I  will  hereafter  send  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  give  you  such  further  instruc- 
tions as  you  need  ;  for  which,  they  were  to 
wait  at  Jerusalem.  See  Luke  24:  49.  This 
looks  very  much  like  assuming  the  powers 
of  a  king,  when  he  repealed  the  old  laws 
given  by  Moses,  enacted  his  own,  appointed 
officers  to  execute  his  laws,  and  carry  on  his 
government.  These  laws  were  as  binding 
on  the  Jews  as  on  the  G-entiles.  They  were 
enacted   at  Jerusalem.     Had  not  Christ  a 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  65 

right  to  do  so  ?  and  were  not  the  Jews  bound 
to  obey  them  ?  Had  they  ail  done  so,  there 
would  have  been  an  end  to  the  Jews,  such 
as  now  call  themselves  the  only  Jews.  There 
would  have  been  none  to  receive  any  other 
promises.*  Bat  the  promises  would  have  re- 
mained as  now  to  the  seed  of  Abraham,  nor 
would  the  seed  of  Abraham  thereby  have 
been  destroyed.  Did  their  rebellion  then 
constitute  them  the  exclusive  heirs,  and 
did  the  obedience  of  those  that  believe  cu* 
them  off? 

But  if  Christ  was  now  a  king,  he  had  a 
kingdom.  Over  whom  then  did  he  reign  ? 
over  which  party  ?  the  believing  part  or  the 
unbelieving  ?  There  can  surely  be  but  one 
answer  to  this.  It  was  over  those  that 
obeyed  his  commands.  But  over  whom  was 
Christ  the  son  of  David  to  reign,  according 
to  the  prophets  ?  was  it  not  over  the  house 
of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah  ?  Must 
not,  then,  the  part  that  believed  and  obeyed 
Christ,  be  the  Israel  of  whom  the  prophets 
speak,  when  they  speak  of  David  being 
king  over  Israel  after  the  death  of  Christ  ? 
Does  not  all  this  seem  to  favor  the  opinion, 
6*^ 


66  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

that  the  party  who  were  true  believers, 
were  after  this  to  be  counted  for  the  seed 
and  heirs  of  Abraham,  and  of  all  the  lega- 
cies yet  due  to  those  heirs,  and  that  those 
of  whom  Christ  says,  John  8  :  44,  ''Ye  are 
of  your  father  the  devil,"  had  lost  all  claim 
to  the  inheritance  still  due  to  the  seed  of 
Abraham  ?  But  more  of  this  in  my  next. 
Yours,  &c.,  A.  "VV. 


LETTER    VII. 

Dear  Sir  : — In  my  last  we  left  Christ 
giving  directions  to  his  disciples  in  relation 
to  the  organization  of  his  kingdom  among 
the  Jews.  The  disciples  went  on  according 
to  the  command  of  Christ,  whom  they  owned 
as  their  prophet  and  king,  and  taught  in 
what  way  they  could  now  be  admitted  as  the 
true  Israel  of  Grod,  or  as  the  subjects  of  this 
kingdom — appointed  officers  in  obedience 
to  the  teachings  of  Christ — and  received  into 
this  kingdom  of  Christ  such  as  professed  to 
believe  him  their  divinely  appointed  Saviour 
and  King,  and  were  willing  to  submit  to  his 
rule  ;  but  teaching,  as  Christ  commanded, 
that  those  only  who  v/ere  true  believers  and 
became  Christ's  people  in  heart,  were  to  be 
regarded  as  now  the  subjects  of  Christ's 
kingdom,  and  the  future  seed  of  Abraham, 
according  to  the  promise  of  God  by  Jer.  31 : 
31—34,  'Behold  thedays  come,saith  the  Lord, 


68  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

that  I  will  make  a  new  covenant  with  the 
house  of  Israel,  and  with  the  house  of  Ju- 
dah,  not  according  to  the  covenant  that  I 
made  with  their  fathers  in  the  day  that  I 
took  them  by  the  hand  to  bring  them  out  of 
the  land  of  Egypt,  which  my  covenant  they 
brake,  although  1  was  a  husband  unto  them, 
saith  the  Lord.  But  this  shall  be  the  cove- 
nant that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of 
Israel  after  those  days,  saith  the  Lord  ;  (but 
after  what  days  ?  Just  after  Eaehel  was 
weeping  for  her  children,  and  would  not 
be  comforted.)  I  will  put  my  law  in 
their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  in  their 
hearts,  and  I  will  be  their  G-od,  and  thei/ 
shall  be  my  people  ;  and  they  shall  teach 
no  more  every  man  his  neighbor,  and  every 
man  his  brother,  saying,  Know  the  Lord ,  for 
all  shall  know  me  from  the  least  of  them 
to  the  greatest  of  them,  saith  the  Lord  ;  for 
I  will  forgive  their  iniquity,  and  their  sins 
will  I  remember  no  more.' 

The  former  covenant  was  made  with 
them  as  a  nation,  the  larger  part  of  whom 
were  unbelievers  in  heart  and  wicked,  and 
therefore  there  was  need  of  one  saying  to 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


69 


another,  know  the  Lord.  But  this  second 
new  and  better  covenant,  as  Paul  calls  it, 
and  under  which,  as  I  think,  we  shall  here- 
after see  we  are  now  living,  was  to  be  so 
made  with  Israel  and  Judah,  that  every  in- 
dividual was  to  have  the  law  written  in 
their  hearts,  or,  in  other  words,  that  no  one 
could  belong  to  it  who  was  not  a  true  be- 
liever and  received  Christ  as  their  king,  and 
his  laws  as  the  rule  of  their  conduct,  and 
hence  there  would  be  no  need  of  the  sub- 
iects  of  this  new  covenant  saying  one  to 
another,  know  the  Lord.  For  this  house  of 
Israel,  with  whom  this  covenant  was  to  be 
made,  would  all  know  the  Lord.  Hence 
Paul  says  in  his  day,  under  this  new  cove- 
nant, '  He  is  not  a  Jew  which  is  one  out- 
wardly— but  he  is  a  Jew  which  is  one  in- 
wardly, and  circumcision  is  that  of  the 
heart;'  and  again,  '  If  ye  be  Christ's,  then 
are  ye  Abraham's  seed,  and  heirs  according 
to  the  promise.'  Are  not  these  then  the 
subjects  of  Christ's  kingdom  ? 

But  if  Christ  be  now  king  in  his  church, 
and  has  actually  established  his  own  laws 
in  his  kingdom,  and  his  officers  to  execute 


70  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

them,  and  required  all  Jews  to  obey  them 
at  the  peril  of  death  eternal,  does  it  not 
seem  to  follow  that  whatever  of  laws  or 
ordinances  there  were  or  now  are  among  the 
Jews,  such  as  constitute  them  a  separate 
people  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  lead 
to  their  being  called  Jews,  are  in  opposition 
to  the  king,  are  self-created  in  rebellion 
against  him,  according  to  the  saying,  we 
will  not  have  this  man  to  reign  over  us  ; 
ajid  can  such  a  rebellious  circumcising  and 
keeping  of  the  Passover  constitute  them  in 
a  scriptural  or  prophetic  sense  the  covenant 
people  of  God  more  than  the  Ishmaelites 
would  be,  if  they  should  do  the  same,  to  the 
exclusion  of  those  who  believed  and  obeyed 
their  lawful  king?  Can  circumcising  and 
keeping  the  law  of  Moses,  in  rebellion 
against  the  command  of  God  in  Christ,  con- 
stitute them  Jews  in  covenant  with  God, 
and  heirs  of  the  legacies  bequeathed  to  the 
seed  of  Abraham,  more  than  it  would  any 
one  of  us,  since  the  law  of  Moses  admitted 
Gentile  converts  to  be  counted  heirs?  Why 
would  a  rebellious  keeping  of  the  law  of 
Moses,  after  that  law  is  repealed  by  Christ, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  71 

constitute  them  heirs  more  than  it  would 
any  other  Gentile — since  both  are  alike  com- 
manded to  believe  in  and  obey  Christ,  and 
not  the  laws  of  Moses  ?  But  if  these  are 
not  in  covenant  with  Grod,  then  they  seem 
to  have  no  claims  to  the  promises  made  of 
G-od  to  Abraham  and  his  seed,  for  these 
were  made  to  God's  covenant  people,  and 
because  of  his  covenant  to  them  ;  but  which 
covenant,  the  Lord  says  by  Jeremiah,  they 
brake,  and  hence  the  new.  But  if  they  are 
not  in  covenant,  then  are  not  those  who  sub- 
mit to  Christ,  (for  with  them  the  new  cove- 
nant seems  to  be  made,)  and  are  they  not 
then  the  heirs  to  all  the  unpaid  legacies  of 
the  Abrahamic  will,  to  the  entire  exclusion 
of  those  who  have  broken  their  covenant 
with  God,  as  much  as  the  men  who  of  old 
refused  to  keep  the  Passover,  while  it  was 
yet  the  command  of  God  to  keep  it  ?  Would 
not  a  contrary  conclusion  imply  that  the 
prophets  taught  that  rebellion  against  Christ 
was  necessary  to  secure  to  their  children  the 
legacies  yet  due  to  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
while  Christ  denounced  them  for  their  un- 
belief and  rebellion,  as  being  not  the  seed 


72  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARTAN. 

of  Abraham,  but  of  their  father  the  devil, 
and  while  John  impliedly  says,  Luke  8  :  8, 
that  God  would  sooner  raise  up  seed  from 
the  very  stones  than  count  those  who  did  not 
*  bring  forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance  ?' 

Do  you  here  say  that  if  the  believing 
Jews  did  forfeit  the  promise  to  Abraham,  to 
their  seed,  still  they  secured  everlasting 
life,  which  the  unbelieving  Jews  lost — so 
that  the  friends  of  Christ  had  still  the  greater 
blessing  ?  If  we  grant  this,  would  it  not 
array  the  New  Testament  and  Old  Testa- 
ment promises  and  threatenings  against 
each  other?  On  this  supposition,  would  not 
the  Jew  have  been  placed  in  such  a  position 
that  go  which  way  he  would  he  must  incur 
one  penalty,  and  secure  one  promise  ?  If  he 
followed  Christ,  he  forfeited  the  promise  to 
Abraham.  If  he  rejected  Christ,  he  forfeit- 
ed the  promise  of  Christ,  and  secured  that 
made  to  Abraham.  So  that  whatever  way 
he  went,  he  incurred  one  penalty,  and  se- 
cured one  promise.  Can  that  be  ?  Can 
Christ  be  thus  arrayed  against  Abraham  ? 
Did  the  prophets  teach  so  ? 

But  let  us  now  turn  to  the  teachings  of 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  73 

the  apostles,  and  see  whether  we  can  learn 
more  definitely  which  of  these  parties  they 
taught  were  the  true  Israelites  and  heirs  to 
the  promises  made  to  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
for  they  had  heard  the  teachings  of  Abraham 
as  explained  by  Christ.  Their  conduct 
seems  to  give  the  answer,  but  their  more  de- 
finite teachings  we  must  defer  to  my  next. 
Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER  VIII. 

Dear  Sir  : — Having  shown  that  the  Jews 
under  Christ  divided  into  two  parties,  the 
one  following  Christ,  and  the  other  rejecting 
him,  and  saying,  we  have  no  king  but  Cae- 
sar, and  that  they  (never  having  reunited) 
could  not  both  be  the  seed  of  Abraham,  and 
heirs  of  the  legacies  given  to  his  seed  ; 
and  also,  that  Christ  strongly  intimated  that 
those  who  followed  him,  and  not  his  ene- 
mies, would  receive  these  legacies,  we  now 
proceed  to  examine  how  the  apostles  who 
were  sent  forth  to  carry  out  the  laws  and 
teachings  of  Christ  understood  him.  Who 
did  they  teach  were  the  heirs?  and  who 
had  forfeited  their  claim  to  the  promises  of 
Grod  to  Abraham  and  David?  They  who 
followed  the  Son  of  David  as  their  promised 
Messiah  and  lawful  king,  or  those  who  re- 
jected him  ?  Both  parties,  as  yet,  were  cir- 
cumcised,   and    for  about   seven    years    to 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  75 

come,  both  parties  were  Jews.  The  party 
who  rejected  Christ  claimed  to  be  the  seed 
of  Abraham  ;  but  Christ  said,  in  reply  to  that 
claim,  John  8  :  89-41,  '  If  ye  were  Abra- 
ham's children  ye  would  do  the  works  of 
Abraham — ye  do  the  deeds  of  your  father, — 
V.  44,  For  ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil.' 
Paul,  in  the  second  chapter  of  Romans,  after 
proving  that  circumcision  did  not  now  con- 
stitute them  heirs,  since  they  were  living 
under  the  new  covenant,  says,  vers.  28,  29, 
'  For  he  is  not  a  Jew  which  is  one  outward- 
ly, neither  is  that  circumcision  which  is 
outward  in  the  flesh.  But  he  is  a  Jew 
which  is  one  inwardly,  and  circumcision  is 
that  of  the  heart  in  the  spirit,  and  not  in 
the  letter.'  Paul  was  here  speaking  of  his 
own  time  about  twenty-seven  years  after 
the  death  of  Christ,  and  proving  that  out- 
ward circumcision  did  not  then  constitute 
them  the  seed  of  Abraham,  or  properly, 
Jews,  but  that  a  change  of  heart  did,  and 
so  claimed  for  himself  and  his  party  to  be 
the  true  Jews,  the  lawful  seed  and  heirs  of 
the  promises  of  Abraham,  or  made  to  Abra- 
ham and  David.     To  this,  we  think,  agree 


76  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

the  words  of  Paul  to  the  G-al.  3  :  7,  "  Know 
ye,  therefore,  that  they  which  are  of  faith 
the  same  are  the  children  of  Abraham  ;"  and 
V.  29,  "  If  ye  be  Christ's,  then  are  ye  Abra- 
ham's seed  and  heirs,  according  to  the 
promises  ;"  for,  ver.  16,  To  Abraham  and  his 
seed  were  the  promises  made.  Is  it  not  here 
plainly  declared  that  those  who  are  Christ's 
by  faith  are  the  seed  of  Abraham,  to  whom 
the  promises  belong ;  not  only  that  part  of 
the  promise  which  referred  to  Christ,  but  all 
the  legacies  yet  due  to  the  lawful  heirs  of 
Abraham  ;  and  does  it  not  imply  that  the 
other  party  who  rejected  Christ,  and  who 
were  now  as  distinct  from  the  disciples  of 
Christ,  as  were  ever  G-entiles  from  Jews, 
were  not  heirs  ?  though  for  seven  years  both 
parties  were  circumcised  Jews.  Nor  does 
it  seem  to  alter  this  conclusion  at  all,  that 
after  some  of  the  Jewish  branches  were 
broken  off  from  this  Jewish  tree  which  still 
lives,  Gentile  converts  were  more  numer- 
ously grafted  in.  The  tree  remained  the 
same,  with  some  changed  branches. 

Could  the  apostle  have  declared  in  plainer 
language  that  circumcision  did  not  consti- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  77 

tate  a  Jew :  that  lineal  descent  from  Abra* 
ham  and  circumcision  did  not  constitute  an 
heir  of  the  promises  ;  but  that  henceforth, 
under  the  gospel  dispensation,  true  believers 
in  Christ  are  now  to  be  considered  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  and  heirs  of  all  the  promises  made 
to  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob  and  David,  which 
are  still  unfulfilled,  and  so  are  still  due  to 
the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  house  of  Judah, 
who  are  the  seed  of  Abraham.  So  that  if 
the  Prophets  speak  of  the  house  of  Israel  and 
Judah,  or  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  &c.,  of 
the  present  time,  do  they  not  speak  of  those 
who  are  in  Christ,  whom  Paul  calls  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  and  heirs  of  the  promises,  in 
opposition  to  those  who  claim  to  be  Jews  ? 

Again,  Rom.  11  :  Paul,  speaking  of  the 
Jewish  church  under  the  figure  of  a  tree, 
says,  ver.  17,  ''And  if  some  of  the  branches 
be  broken  off,  and  thou  being  a  wild  olive 
tree  wert  grafted  in  among  them,"  &c. ;  and 
vers.  23-24,  "And  they  also,  if  they  abide 
not  still  in  unbelief,  shall  be  grafted  in,  for 
God  is  able  to  graft  them  in  again  ;  for  if  thou 
wert  cut  out  of  the  olive  tree  which  is  wild 
by  nature,  and  wert  grafted  contrary  to  na- 
7# 


78  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN, 

ture,  into  the  good  olive  tree,  how  much 
more  shall  these  which  be  the  natural  bran- 
ches be  grafted  into  their  own  olive  tree?" 
Does  not  Paul  here  take  it  for  granted,  that 
the  Jewish  or  Abrahamic  tree  still  lives  in 
that  part  of  the  nation  that  followed  Christ, 
and  that  the  unbelieving  Jews  were  cut  off, 
and  no  longer  had  any  claim  to  be"  the  heirs 
of  promise  ?  And  does  he  not  expressly  say, 
that  if  they  ever  return,  it  is  to  be  by  being 
re-engrafted  into  their  own  olive  tree,  which 
still  lives,  and  is  not  that  tree  the  part 
of  the  Jews  who  follow  Christ,  or  true 
believers,  whether  Jews  or  Gentiles?  If 
Paul  does  not  teach  that  the  unbelieving: 
Jews  were  cut  off,  we  know  not  how  he 
could  have  taught  it,  or  how  he  could  have 
taught  that  those  who  were  in  Christ  were 
the  seed  of  Abraham,  and  heirs  accord inof 
to  the  promise,  and  the  Abrahamic  tree 
still  lives,  though  diminished,  as  in  verse 
12. 

Again,  when  writing  on  the  same  subject 
to  the  GalatianSj  he  seems  to  teach  the  same 
truths— Gal.  4  :  21-31.  Paul  here  declares 
that  Isaac  and  Ishmael  allegorically  reprc- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  79 

sent  the  two  covenants  :  the  old,  at  Mount 
Sinai,  with  Moses  and  Israel,  and  the  new, 
with  Christ  and  his  church  or  people.  That 
the  Sinaic  represented  the  present  Jerusa- 
lem in  bondage  ;  but  the  latter  the  Jerusa- 
lem  or  church  which  is  free  ;  and  then  adds, 
emphatically,  ver.  28,  "  Now  we,  brethren, 
as  Isaac  was,  are  the  childrenof  promise  ;  but 
as  then  he  that  was  born  after  the  flesh  per- 
secuted him  that  was  born  after  the  spirit, 
so  it  is  now  :  nevertheless,  what  saith  the 
scripture?  Cast  out  the  bond-woman  and 
her  son,  for  the  son  of  the  bond -woman  shall 
not  be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free."  So 
then,  brethren,  we  (the  believing  Jews 
and  engrafted  Gentiles)  are  not  children 
of  the  bond-woman,  but  of  the  free." 
Could  Paul  have  given  to  a  Jew  a  more  lu- 
cid representation  of  his  total  exclusion 
from  all  the  Abrahamic  promises  or  cove- 
nant promises,  than  by  declaring  that  he 
stood  in  the  same  relation  to  Abraham  that 
Ishmael  did,  whom  all  the  Jews,  with  one 
voice,  declare  to  have  no  part  nor  lot  with 
the  promised  seed  of  Abraham  ?  Or  could  he 
have  set  up  a  stronger  claim  for  himself 


80  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

and  his  companions,  the  believing  Jews,  to- 
gether with  the  engrafted  Grentiles,  than  by 
saying,  thus  emphatically,  'Now  we,  breth- 
ren, as  Isaac  was,  are  the  children  of  prom- 
ise, when  all  the  Jews  admitted  that  none  of 
the  seed  of  Abraham,  excepting  Isaac,  were 
included  in  the  promise  ?  Does  it  not  then 
follow,  that  when  the  prophets  speak  of  the 
heirs  of  promise,  or  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
or  house  of  Israel  and  Judah — in  reference 
to  the  present  time,  they  speak  only  of  true 
believers,  and  not  at  all  of  those  outcast 
Jews,  who  have  incurred  the  penalty  of  ex- 
cision ?  If  such  declarations  as  we  have  re- 
ferred to,  do  not  prove  that  those  in  Christ 
are  the  true  seed  of  Abraham,  and  heirs  of 
the  promise,  we  ask  what  language  could 
prove  it  ? — while  it  seems  to  show,  with 
equal  explicitness,  that  the  present  Jews  are 
cut  off,  and  are  not  the  heirs  of  promise. 
But  of  this  more  in  my  next.  Even  at  the 
hazard  of  appearing  somewhat  tedious  in 
repeating  the  same  texts,  we  will  try  to 
show  they  are  excinded. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    IX. 

JEWS  REJECTED. 

Dear  Sir  : — That  the  covenant  relation 
of  the  Jews  with  G-od,  ended  at  the  death 
of  Christ,  and  that  therefore,  no  covenant 
promises  made  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  and  repeated  by  the  prophets  belong 
to  them  at  present,  may  be  farther  inferred, 

1.  From  the  fact,  that  the  penalty  of  many 
of  their  laws  was  excision  from  the  Lord's 
people.  See  Gen.  17  :  14.  '  And  the  uncir- 
cumcised  man-child,  whose  flesh  of  his  fore- 
skin is  not  circumcised,  that  soul  shall  be  cut 
off  from  his  people,  he  hath  broken  my  cove- 
nant'. See  again  Ex.  12  :  19.  '  Seven  days 
there  shall  be  no  leaven  found  in  your  houses, 
for  whosoever  eateth  that  which  is  leaven- 
ed, even  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from  the 
congregation  of  Israel,  whether  he  be  a 
stranger  or  born  in  the  land.'  See  again 
Num.  9  :  13.   "  But  the   man  that  is  clean, 


82  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

and  is  not  in  a  journey,  and  forbeareth  to  keep 
the  Passover,  even  the  same  soul  shall  be  cut 
off  from  his  people.'  Ex.  22  :  20.  '  He  that 
sacrificeth  to  any  god,  save  unto  the  Lord 
only,  he  shall  be  utterly  destroyed.'  See 
also,  Ex.  30 :  33  and  38  ;  31  :  14 ;  Lev.  7 : 
20-27  ;  17  :  4,  9,  10,  14 ;  and  18  :  1-24. 
Now  most  of  these  laws  they  had  broken, 
as  is  proved  both  by  the  historians  and  the 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  before  the 
Babylonish  captivity — at  least  great  num- 
bers of  them  had.  Such  were  the  charges 
brought  against  them,  in  justification  of 
the  Lord's  dealing  with  them,  when  he  suf- 
fered them  to  be  subdued  and  led  into  cap- 
tivity by  their  enemies.  And  this  may  ac- 
count for  the  fewness  of  those  who  were 
brought  back  from  their  captivities,  for  all 
those  who  had  by  their  sin  incurred  the  pe- 
nalty of  excision,  could  no  longer  claim 
that  they  were  of  Israel — and  therefore, 
the  promise  of  God  by  the  prophets,  to  res- 
tore all  of  them  who  were  of  Israel  was 
fulfilled,  though  all  that  had  incurred  the 
penalty  of  excision  were  left,  when  the 
rest  were  brought  back — according  to  Amos 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  83 

9  :  8,  9. '  Behold  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  God  are 
upon  the  sinful  kingdom,  and  I  will  destroy 
it  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  saving 
that  I  will  not  utterly  destroy  the  house  of 
Jacob,  saith  the  Lord.  For  lo,  I  will  com- 
mand, and  I  will  sift  the  house  of  Israel 
among  all  nations,  like  as  corn  is  sifted  in  a 
sieve  ;  yet  shall  not  the  least  grain  fall  upon 
the  earth.'  Now  if  they  were  sifted,  was  it 
not  to  separate  the  chaff  from  the  grain,  as 
was  done  in  their  last  captivity,  the  return 
from  which  commenced  seventy  years  after 
they  were  carried  captive,  and  was  com- 
pleted at  or  before  the  resurrection  of 
Christ,  when  there  were  dwelling  at  Jeru- 
salem Jews,  devout  men  out  of  every  nation 
under  heaven,  as  recorded  Acts  2:5?  After 
which  the  prophet  goes  on  to  say  how  the 
house  of  David  is  to  be  built  up  without  the 
rebels  who  were  cut  off.  V.  11.  In  that  day- 
will  I  raise  up  the  tabernacle  of  David  which 
is  fallen  down.  But  how  is  this  to  be  done  ? 
By  bringing  back  those  Jews  who  have  in- 
curred the  penalty  of  excision  ?  Let  James 
answer,  Acts  15  :  14-17.  Referring  to  this 
prediction,  he  says,  "  Simeon  hath  declared 


84  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

how  G-od  atthe  first  did  visit  the  Gentiles,  to 
take  out  of  them  a  people  for  his  name," — 
not  out  of  the  excinded  Jews."  And  to  this 
agree  the  words  of  the  prophets,  as  it  is 
written  :  After  this  I  will  return,  and  will 
build  as^ain  the  tafeernacle  of  David  which  is 
fallen  down,  and  I  will  build  again  the  ruins 
thereof,  and  I  will  set  it  up,  that  the  residue  of 
men  might  seek  after  the  Lord,  and  all  the 
Gentiles  upon  whom  my  name  is  called, 
saith  the  Lord,  who  doeth  all  these  things." 
In  the  last  revolt  of  the  Jews,  when  they 
rejected  Christ,  denounced  him  as  an  impos- 
tor unworthy  to  live,  declared  they  would 
not  have  him  to  reign  over  them,  and  put 
him  to  death,  they  seemed  to  have  filled  up 
the  measure  of  their  iniquity,  and  to  have 
fully  incurred  the  penalty  of  final  excision 
according  to  the  law  of  Moses.  Deut.  18  : 
15-19.  "The  Lord  thy  God  will  raise  up 
unto  thee  a  prophet,  from  the  midst  of  thy 
brethren,  like  unto  me.  Unto  him  shall 
ye  hearken,"  &o.,  as  explained  by  Peter, 
Acts  3  ;  22,  3.  "  For  Moses  truly  said  unto 
the  fathers,  A  prophet  shall  the  Lord  your 
God   raise   up  unto  you,  of  your  brethren 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  85 

like  unto  me  :  him  shall  ye  hear  in  all  things 
whatsoever  he  shall  say  unto  you,  and  it 
shall  come  to  pass,  that  every  soul  that  will 
not  hear  that  prophet,  shall  be  destroyed 
from  among  the  people." 

Now  if  Moses  referred  to  the  time  of  the 
coming  of  Christ  and  to  Christ,  as  that  pro- 
phet, and  Peter  also,  as  probably  all  admit, 
then  it  seems  to  follov/,  with  almost  demon- 
strative certainty,  that  all  who  continued 
to  reject  Christ  did  incur  the  penalty,  and 
were  actually  exscinded  from  the  covenant 
people  of  Grod  ;  the  church  of  Christ  which 
was  now  organized  according  to  the  new 
covenant  foretold  by  Jeremiah  31  :  31-34, 
explained  by  Paul,  Heb.  8  :  8-13,  and  was 
as  yet  as  essentially  Jewish  as  it  ever  had 
been. 

At  this  time  all  who  did  not  join  in  the 
revolt,  came  out  from  among  them,  and  put 
themselves  under  the  rule  of  Christ,  so  that 
the  Jews,  as  such  were  now,  as  distinctly 
divided  from  the  Jewish  church  of  Christ, 
now  called  the  disciples  of  Christ,  and  af- 
terward Christian,  as  ever  the  Jews  and 
G-entiles  were  ;  now  as  those  Jews  wdio  re- 
8 


86 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


jected  Christ  as  an  impostor,  and  joined  in 
crucifying  him  as  such,  had  plainly  incurred 
the  penalty  of  their  own  law  as  explained 
by  Peter,  an  inspired  apostle,  by  refusing  to 
hear  and  obey  Christ,  must  we  not  infer 
that  they  were  cut  off  from  all  covenant 
relations  to  God,  and  from  all  the  promises 
made  to  Abraham  ?  If  not,  then  that  part 
of  the  Jews  who  did  hear  and  obey  that 
prophet,  the  admitted  son  of  David,  who 
was  to  reign  over  them,  must  have  been  cut 
oiT.  For  if  the  Jews  now,  so  called,  are  not 
cut  off,  then  those  that  obeyed  Christ  were, 
for  both  parties  were  not  and  arc  not  now 
Jews  in  the  same  sense,  nor  do  the  pro- 
phets refer  to  and  spealv  of  both  parties,  as 
the  Jews  and  Israel  of  Grod.  And  since  the 
peualty  of  the  law  for  disobedience  was  ex- 
cision, must  we  not  infer  that  those  who 
disobeyed  were  cut  off,  and  not  those  who 
obeyed,  and  cut  off,  so  as  to  have  no  more 
claim  than  the  uncircumcised  man-child  to 
the  promises  made  to  Abraham,  &;c.  ? 

2.  This  excision  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact,  admitted  by  all,  that  before  the 
death   of  Christ,  the   Jews   did   suffer   the 


LETTEFS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  87 

curses  of  Moses,  which  were  but  another 
name  for  the  penalties  for  the  violation  of 
those  hiws  published  and  repeated  by  Moses  ; 
at  the  same  time,  that  the  law  requiring 
excision  for  rejecting  Christ  was  publish- 
ed. Great  numbers  of  them  were  slain  in 
their  wars,  and  were  thus  cut  off — but 
many  others  were  carried  captive  and  suf- 
fered these  curses  or  penalties,  for  their 
sins  before  the  death  of  Christ,  and  since 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  it  has  been 
the  common  lot  of  those  who  rejected 
Christ. 

Now  if  all  the  other  penalties  pronounced 
by  Moses  have  fallen  upon  the  violators  of 
the  law,  upon  those  who  would  not  have 
Christ  to  reign  over  them,  and  are  still  call- 
ed Jews,  must  not  the  penalty  of  final  ex- 
cision from  the  people  of  God,  which  was 
the  specific  penalty  for  not  obeying  Christ, 
have  fallen  upon  them  also  ?  and  not  upon 
those  who  followed  and  obeyed  Christ.  For 
upon  the  one  or  the  other  ihe  penalty  has 
been  executed — for  all  admit,  that  both  par- 
ties are  not  now  the  Israel  of  the  promises. 
Can  we  then  suppose  that  all  the  other  pe- 


88  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

nalties  have  been  executed  on  the  rejectors 
of  Christ,  and  that  the  penalty  which  was 
specifically  the  penalty  for  rejecting  the 
Saviour  has  been  executed,  not  upon  the  re- 
jectors of  Christ,  but  upon  those  who  fol- 
lowed and  obeyed  the  Saviour,  and  upon 
their  descendants.  This  surely  would  be 
a  strange  conclusion,  when  Peter  says,  that 
every  soul  that  will  not  hear  that  prophet, 
shall  be  destroyed  from  among  the  people. 

3.  That  the  present  Jews  have  forfeited 
all  their  covenant  blessings,  may  be  inferred 
again  from  what  John  says,  Mat.  3  :  9  and 
10,  "  And  think  not  to  say  within  yourselves 
we  have  Abraham  to  our  father,  for  I  say 
unto  you  that  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to 
raise  up  children  unto  Abraham.  And  now 
also  the  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of  the  trees, 
therefore  every  tree  which  bringcth  not  forth 
good  fruit  is  cast  into  the  fire,"  and  also  from 
what  Christ  said  would  be  after  his  death. 
Mat.  21 :  33-45.  In  the  last  verse  of  this 
parable,  the  Jews  admit  that  he  had  spoken 
of  them  in  the  preceding  part — ''  They  per- 
ceived that  he  spake  of  them," — in  which  he 
represents  the  conduct  of  those  who  reject 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARFAN.  89 

him  as  so  unreasonable  and  wicked  as  to 
justify  his  declaration,  v.  44,  "  Therefore, 
I  say  unto  you,  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
shall  be  taken  from  you,  and  given  to  a 
nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof." 
Christ  does  not,  like  the  prophets  who  pre- 
dicted their  captivity  by  the  Babylonians, 
foretell  that  there  would  be  a  return  of  them, 
or  of  the  kingdom  to  them,  but  leaves  it  as 
an  absolute  separation  of  them  from  the  peo- 
ple of  G-od  as  enemies,  so  long  as  they  re- 
mained by  their  obstinate  unbelief  separate, 
just  as  the  curses  of  Moses  would  follow  them 
evermore. 

Now  what  did  Christ  mean,  if  he  did  not 
mean  that  their  special  favors  as  Jews  would 
end  after  they  had  put  him  to  death?  and 
why,  if  these  favors  were  ever  to  return  in  a 
special  manner  to  them,  did  not  Christ  hold 
out  some  encouragement  to  them  that  when 
they  repented  as  a  people  they  would  be 
again  restored  to  their  own  land,  as  all  the 
prophets  who  spake  before  the  captivity  did  ? 
How  can  we  account  for  the  fact  that  when 
he  was  pronouncing  those  dreadful  woes  that 
8* 


90  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

were  to  overtake  that  part  of  the  Jews  who 
rejected  him  when  the  Romans  would  in- 
vade their  land,  and  destroy  their  temple, 
and  city,  and  country — woes  such  as  had 
never  been,  and  never  would  be  again  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  that  he  did  not  then,  or 
ever  after,  hold  out  one  ray  of  comfort  by 
way  of  pointing  them  to  the  time  of  the  end 
of  these  woes,  and  their  returning  prosperi- 
ty, when  he  would  bring  them  back  to  the 
land  of  their  fathers,  and  reign  over  them  in 
person,  if  that  were  his  purpose  ?  and  if  the 
promises  secured  that  to  them,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  those  that  obeyed  him?  He  gave 
abundant  directions  to  those  who  believed 
in  and  obeyed  him  how  they  should  act  and 
sustain  themselves  during  those  trying  times, 
by  warning  them  to  flee  from  the  city,  and 
pointing  them  to  his  power  to  save  and  re- 
ward his  friends.  Why  then  does  he  not 
give  one  word  of  comfort  to  his  enemies? 
Is  it  here  said  that  there  are  intimations, 
Mat.  23  :  37,  and  Luke  13:  34,  and  21 :  24, 
that  the  Jews  will  again  be  recalled  ?  We 
answer  that  these  are  only  intimations  by 
forced  constructions,  and  that  there  is  not 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLEXARIAN.  91 

OHG  Vs'Oi'd  of  direct  aj?sertion,  sacli  as  the 
prophets  used,  that  they  will  ever  be  brought 
back  to  the  land  of  their  fathers,  either  as 
the  church  or  as  a  people  to  the  church.  In 
all  ordinary  cases  the  predictions  of  Christ 
are  more  plain  than  those  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophets.  He  foretells  their  captivity 
and  the  total  destruction  of  Jerusalem  with 
more  distinctness.  Why  then,  we  ask  again, 
when  Christ  was  comforting  that  part  of 
the  Jews  w^ho  obeyed  him,  did  he  not  give 
one  word  of  comfort  to  the  others,  by  naming 
the  time  of  their  returning  prosperity  ?  For, 
bad  as  they  were  described  to  be  by  the  pro- 
phet, Eze.  8 :  5-18,  before  the  final  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldeans,  and 
certain  as  their  captivity  was  in  consequence 
of  their  sin,  yet  to  encourage  them  while 
captives  he  predicts  their  certain  returning 
prosperity,  16  :  60-64  ;  20  :  34-40  ;  34  :  13 
-16,  and  especially  37:21-25,  "And  say 
unto  them,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold, 
I  will  take  the  children  of  Israel  from  among 
the  heathen  whither  they  be  gone,  and 
will  gather  them  on  every  side,  and  bring 
them  into  their  own  land,"  &c.     Why  then, 


92  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

did  not  Christ,  when  he  had  foretold  these 
dreadful  woes,  then,  or  ever  after,  thus 
plainly  point  them  to  the  time  of  their  cer- 
tain return,  if  that  were  his  purpose  ?  Let 
him  answer  for  himself,  as  he  does  in  the 
parable  of  the  nobleman,  Luke  19  :  12-27, 
who  went  into  a  far  country  to  receive  for 
himself  a  kingdom,  and  to  return,  and  he 
delivered  to  his  servants  ten  pounds  and  said 
occupy  till  I  come,  but  his  citizens  hated 
him,  and  sent  a  message  after  him  saying, 
We  will  not  have  this  man  to  reign  over  us. 
Was  not  this  nobleman  Christ,  and  were 
not  these  citizens  the  party  of  the  Jews  who 
rejected  him?  and  what  became  of  them? 
After  his  return  and  calling  his  servants  to 
account,  he  adds,  v.  27,  "  But  those  mine 
enemies  which  would  not  that  I  should  reign 
over  them,  bring  hither  and  slay  them  be- 
fore me."  Could  Christ  have  given  a  plainer 
reason  why  he  spake  to  them  of  no  return 
to  prosperity  in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  or 
a  more  vivid  description  of  what  would  be 
their  doom  when  he  came  the  second  time  ? 
Have  they  not  then  forfeited  all  their  cove- 
nant  promises    and    become    G-entiles,    as 


LETTERS    TO    A    iMILLENARI AN,  93 

much  as  the  EJomit.es,  who  also  descended 
from  Abraham  ?  Nor  will  the  meanino:  of 
the  foregoing  parable  be  much  altered 
whether  we  fix  our  mJnds  on  the  return  of 
Christ  to  his  disciples  after  his  resurrection, 
when  he  said  all  power  in  heaven  and  earth 
is  given  unto  me,  and  on  that  power  set  up 
his  kingdom,  appointing  his  own  officers  to 
execute  his  laws,  and  carry  on  his  govern- 
ment in  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  thereby 
virtually  repealing  the  entire  Jewish  code  of 
ceremonial  laws  ;  and  his  subsequently  des- 
troying their  city  and  temple  as  the  penalty 
for  their  refusing  to  have  him  reign  over 
them — after  he  had  called  all  his  friends  out 
of  it — or  fix  our  minds  on  his  future  coming, 
at  the  day  of  final  account. 

4.  The  entire  exclusion  of  the  present 
Jew  from  all  the  promises  made  to  Abra- 
ham, &c.,  may  be  infeiTed  again  from  Vv'hat 
Paul  says  to  the  Romans  and  Gralatians, 
after  the  death  of  Christ,  and  the  church  or 
kingdom  of  Christ  was  regularly  organized 
according  to  his  own  laws,  and  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  his  own  officers  out  of  that 
part  of  the  Jews   who  received   Christ  as 


94  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

their  king,  and  the  others  who  rejected  him 
wholly  separated  from  them,  so  that  they 
were  no  longer  one  people,  obeying  one  set 
of  laws  as  when  Christ  was  in  the  world — 
but  two  distinct  and  separate  parties,  obey- 
ing different  laws  and  as  bitterly  opposed  to 
each  other  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  as  were 
Jews  and  Grentiles, 

Rom.  11  :  J5-25,  Paul  speaking  of  the 
Abrahamic  church  under  the  figure  of  a 
tree,  represents  the  unbelieving  part  of  the 
Jews  as  cut  off  from  the  old  tree,  while  the 
tree  still  lives,  though  diminished,  verse  12, 
and  is  increased  by  the  engrafting  of  Gren- 
tiles. Their  exclusion  is  made  perfect  by 
their  being  cut  off  for  their  unbelief  a? 
worthless  branches  from  a  tree ;  and  verse 
23,  he  shows  that  if  any  of  them  repented 
and  turned  to  Christ,  they  were  to  be  en- 
grafted into  the  old  Abrahamic  tree,  which 
had  all  the  while  been  living.  They  are  to 
be  engrafted  just  as  Gentiles,  with  no  more 
claim  to  the  promises  than  other  Grentiles. 
Are  they  not  then,  at  present,  cut  off  just  as 
much  as  any  other  Grentiles?  Is  it  said  that 
Paul  brings  them  all  back  in  verse  26  ?     To 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  95 

this  we  can  only  say,  for  the  present,  this  is 
far  from  being  plain,  and  very  doubtful  as 
to  its  true  meaning,  as  we  shall  hereafter  en- 
deavor to  show,  and  does  not  seem  to  alter 
the  saying,  in  verse  23,  that  they  are  to  be 
engrafted  singly,  as  other  G-entiles,  even 
^lould  they  all  return  under  Paul's  predic- 
tion. 

Again,  Gal.  4  :  21-31,  Paul  teaches  that 
Isaac  and  Ishmael  allegorically  represent 
the  two  covenants  ;  the  old  at  Mount  Sinai, 
and  the  new  under  Christ.  That  the  Sinaio 
represented  the  present  Jerusalem  in  bond- 
age, but  the  latter  the  Jerusalem  which  is 
free,  and  then  adds,  emphatically,  v.  28 — 
Now  we,  brethren,  (believers)  as  Isaac  was, 
are  the  children  of  the  promise.  But,  as 
then,  he  that  was  born  after  the  flesh  per- 
secuted him  that  was  born  after  the  spirit, 
80  it  is  now.  Nevertheless,  what  saith  tlie 
scripture  ?  Cast  out  the  bond-woman  and 
her  son,  for  the  son  of  the  bond-woman  shall 
not  be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free,  so  then 
brethren,  we  are  not  the  children  of  the  bond- 
woman, but  of  the  free,  "We  then  repeat 
again  : 


96 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


Could  Paul  have  given  to  a  Jew  a  more 
vivid  representation  of  his  total  exclusion 
frotri  all  the  Abrahamic  promises,  or  from 
the  Abrahamic  covenant,  than  by  declaring 
that  they  stood  where  Ishmael  did,  and  had 
no  better  claim  to  the  promises  than  he, 
whom  all  the  Jews,  with  one  consent,  de- 
clared had  none  ? 

And  must  we  not  infer  from  this  that  when 
Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  or  any 
other  Old  Testament  prophet,  predict  what 
is  to  be  the  future  condition  of  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  under  whatever  name,  they  no 
more  refer  to  that  part  which  were  cut  off 
from  the  covenant  relation,  as  here  repre- 
sented, than  they  do  to  the  Ishmaelites,  the 
Edomites,  or  any  others  that  were  cut  off? 
Where  can  you  find  the  evidence  in  the  Old 
Testament  prophecies,  that  one  part  of  the 
excluded  seed  of  i^braham  will  be  brought 
back  more  than  the  others?  To  the  New  Tes- 
tament predictions  we  shall  hereafter  refer. 

5th.  Finally,  is  not  the  exclusion  of  the 
Jews  proved  from  the  fact  that  for  1800 
years  they  have  been  excluded  from  all  the 
privileges  of  the  peculiar  people  of  G-od  ? 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  97 

When,  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  the  Jews 
were  in  captivity  in  Babylon  for  70  years 
•only,  it  seemed  long,  and  prophets  were 
sent  of  Grod  again  and  again,  to  encourage 
them  and  to  point  them  to  the  time  of  their 
return,  and  to  assure  them  that  as  certain 
as  day  and  night  should  continue,  so  certain 
should  their  return  be  to  their  own  land, 
after  70  years  ;  for  then  the  Cliurch  of 
Christ  was  in  captivity  with  them,  and  she 
complained  to  her  Lord,  whose  eye  was  upon 
her,  of  her  sore  bondage.  But  not  so  now 
the  Church  is  not  in  captivity  with  the  pre- 
sent Jews.  They  only  stand  as  beacons  of 
warning  to  the  Church — but  the  Church  is 
not  there,  nor  are  ministers  sent  to  them  to 
read  to  them,  out  of  the  New  Testament, 
predictions  making  their  return  certain. 

Millenarians  point  us  to  the  condition  of 
the  Jews,  from  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
by  the  Romans,  to  the  present  day,  to  prove 
that  they  are  actually  suffering  the  very 
woes  described  in  the  curses  of  Moses  and 
foretold  by  the  prophets  for  their  sins,  and 
that,  therefore,  these  are  the  very  people  of 
whom  Moses  and  the  prophets  spake,  and 
9 


98  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENAIUAN. 

they  seem  to  make  out  a  strong  case.  But  if 
they  are  right  and  if  their  suffering  the  very 
woes  which  Moses  said  would  follow  them 
evermore,  for  the  violation  of  their  laws, 
proves  that  they  are  the  people  of  whom 
Moses  spake,  and  that  their  present  suiTerings 
are  the  very  penalties  to  which  Moses  re- 
ferred,— does  it  not  follow  with  the  same 
certainty  that  when  they  have  been  cut  oft' 
from  the  people  of  God  for  more  than  1800 
years,  so  as  to  have  no  more  connection  with 
tiiem  than  the  Grentile  had  with  the  Jew  ; 
that  they  are  suffering  the  penalty  of  exci- 
sion also,  as  much  as  ever  the  descendants 
of  Esau  did,  and  that  they  have,  therefore, 
no  more  claim  to  the  covenant  promise  made 
to  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  than  the  un- 
circumcised  man-ch'ld  ? 

Why  is  the  one,  more  proof  that  they  are 
suffering  the  penalty  of  that  law  than  the 
other  ?  And  if  they  are  suffering  the  penalty 
of  exscision,  then  it  follows  that  no  promise 
made  to  Abraham,  and  repeated  by  the  pro- 
phets, can  apply  to  them,  for  all  these  are 
covenant  promises  made  to  the  seed  of  Abra- 
ham, while  they  are  only  known  as  bearing 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  99 

the  penalties  they  have  incurred,  especially 
that  of  excision.  So  that  all  the  promisets 
made  to  the  seed  of  Abraham  must  belong, 
so  far  as  yet  unfulfilled,  to  that  part  of  the 
Jews  and  their  descendants,  who  obeyed 
and  served  Christ,  together  w^ith  the  believ- 
ing proselytes  from  the  G-entiles,  whom  we 
have  before  proved  to  be  the  true  seed  of 
Abraham  and  heirs  of  the  promises  made  to 
him — and  that  therefore  the  saying  of  Christ, 
*'Ye  are  of  your  father  the  devil,"  and  "I 
know  the  blasphemy  of  them  that  say  they 
are  Jews  and  are  not,"  belongs  to  the  present 
Jevv^s.  And  ought  we  not  then  to  beware 
lest  we  encourage  them  in  that  blasphemy, 
and  thus  become  partakers  of  their  sin  ? 
Yours,  (Sec,  A.  W, 


LETTER    X. 

Dear  Sir: — Having  seen  that  the  pre- 
sent nation  or  people  called  Jews,  have  for- 
feited all  claim  to  the  character  or  title  of 
the  seed  of  Abraham,  and  heirs  to  the  pro- 
mises made  to  him  and  his  seed,  and  that 
according  to  Christ  and  Paul,  those  who  are 
in  Christ  are  now  the  seed  and  heirs  of 
Abraham  ;  it  follows  that  whatever  the  pro- 
phets have  said  of  bequests  yet  due  to  the 
seed  of  Abraham,  they  have  said  of  true 
believers,  whom  Paul  says,  are  now  Abra- 
ham's heirs.  It  is  not  perceived  how  this 
conclusion  can  be  avoided,  if  the  premises 
are  fairly  established. 

But  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  trying  them 
by  one  more  test,  we  admit  the  contrary, 
and  say,  that  the  prophetic  promises  or  le- 
gacies belong  to  the  Jews  who  have  rejected 
Christ,  then  those  who  obeyed  him  have 
forfeited  them  :  and  then,  if  thev  understood 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  101 

the  prophets,  they  must  have  understood 
them  as  saying,  These  great  blessings  you 
will  secure  to  yourselves  and  posterity  if 
you  remain  in  rebellion  against  Christ  for 
two  thousand  years  or  more  ;  but  if  you 
obey  Christ,  you  will  lose  them.  May  we 
not  safely  say,  that  whatever  the  prophets 
did  teach,  they  did  not  thus  encourage  the 
Jews  to  reject  Christ  ?  They  did  not  give 
the  blessings  promised  to  the  rebels  and  dis- 
inherit the  friends  of  Christ. 

But  do  you  ask,  Can  the  prophecies  be  ex- 
plained in  accordance  with  these  views  ?  If 
they  cannot,  yet  if  the  previous  facts  be 
clearly  established  the  result,  viz.,  that 
the  promises,  whatever  they  be,  belong  to 
true  believers,  must  also  follow,  even  though 
some  of  the  predictions  of  the  prophets  re- 
main obscure. 

Do  you  say,  that  though  this  may  be  true 
in  reference  to  prophetic  promises,  including 
legacies,  yet  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  in 
reference  to  mere  predictions,  such  as  we 
have  of  the  overthrow  of  Sodom  and  Baby- 
lon, or  even  of  the  coming  of  Christ?    This 

is  fully  admitted.    But  such  admission  will 
9# 


102  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

not  secure  blessings  to  the  rebellious,  nor 
are  we  certain  that  G-od  has  ever  made  pro- 
mises of  good  to  those  who  are  the  enemies 
of  G-od.  When  promises  were  made  to  the 
Jews,  as  the  seed  of  Abraham,  they  were 
the  people  of  G-od  in  distinction  from  all 
other  nations,  among  whom  were  none  of 
G-od's  people.  But  now  the  people  of  G-od 
are  found  in  the  church,  while  the  Jew  who 
denies  that  Christ  has  come  in  the  flesh  is 
called  an  antichrist.  Are  they  not  all  then 
the  enemies  of  Christ  ? 

But  let  us  now,  keeping  the  previous  es- 
tablished facts  in  view,  approach  the  pro- 
phets, and  see  how  far  we  can  understand 
them,  and  whether  they  certainly  teach  dif- 
ferent things,  or  whether  they  accord  with 
the  facts  before  established. 

It  will  be  admitted,  that  all  the  predic- 
tions of  the  Jewish  prophets,  relating  to  the 
captivity  of  the  Jews,  as  far  down  as  their 
captivity  by  the  Chaldeans,  when  they  were 
to  be  carried  to  Babylon,  have  been  fulfilled. 
If  there  are  any  of  the  Jewish  prophets,  who 
speak  of  the  captivity  of  the  Jews,  after  the 
death  of  Christ  by  the  Romans,  or  by  an 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  103 

other,  they  should  be  distinctly  marked,  we 
have  not  found  them,  and,  moreover,  are  in- 
clined to  think  they  cannot  be  found.  Now 
if  the  Jewish  prophets  did  not  speak  of  any 
captivity  of  the  Jews  after  Christ,  the  pro- 
bability would  seem  to  be,  that  they  spoke 
of  no  return  from  such  captivity,  unless 
there  is  strong  evidence  to  the  contrary. 

Will  it  not  also  be  admitted,  that  when 
the  prophets  foretold  the  captivity  of  the  ten 
tribes,  they  did  not  connect  with  it  any  pro- 
mise of  their  return  from  that  captivity,  as 
was  the  common  practice  when  they  pre- 
dicted the  captivity  of  the  Jews  by  the  Chal- 
deans ?  If  they  did,  the  place  where  they 
did  it  should  be  distinctly  marked,  as  we 
have  not  found  it. 

It  will  also  be  admitted,  that  the  prophets 
did  distinctly  foretell  the  return  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  or,  as  they  were  then  called,  the 
Jews,  and  that  as  parts  of  the  other  tribes 
had  returned  to  them  as  before  shown,  that 
the  prophets  spake  of  them  as  Israel  and 
Judah,  and  that  they  often  spake  of  their 
return  while  they  were  in  Babylon. 

It  will  also  be  admitted,  that  three  times 


104  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLExNARIAN. 

the  prophets  fixed  the  time  when  the  return 
from  the  captivity  should  begin — viz.  :  Jer. 
29  :  10.  "  For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  that  after 
seventy  years  be  accomplished  at  Babylon, 
I  will  visit  you  and  perform  my  good  word 
toward  you,  in  causing  you  to  return  to  this 
place" — 51 :  5,  6,  when  they  are  direct- 
ed to  flee  out  of  Babylon  ;  and  also  Jer. 
25:  11,  12,  "  They  shall  serve  the  king  of 
Babylon  seventy  years,"  &o. 

It  will  be  admitted  again,  that  after  the 
land  had  enjoyed  her  seventy  years  of  Sab- 
baths, that  Ezra,  under  the  direction  of 
Cyrus,according  to  both  Jeremiah  and  Isaiah, 
did  commence  this  return,  as  recorded  in 
Ezra  1:1,  and  onward^  so  as  to  leave  no 
doubt  on  the  mind  of  the  Jews  as  to  the 
period  of  their  captivity.  With  this  return 
the  prophets  speak  of  the  coming  of  Christ. 
See  Jer.  23:  6;  31:  13;  33:  15;  and  Dan. 
9 :  24,  25,  fixes  also  the  time  of  that  event. 
Does  it  not  then  follow,  that  when  the 
prophets,  after  they  have  marked  the  time, 
gpeak  of  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  captiv- 
ity, a  captivity  which  they  had  often  fore- 
told, that  we  are  to  understand  them  as 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLKNARIAN.  105 

speaking  of  that  return  which  they  had 
marked,  unless  they  plainly  warn  us  in 
what  they  say,  that  they  refer  to  another 
captivity  and  another  return?  This  would 
surely  be  the  way  in  which  we  would  un- 
derstand other  writers  when  speaking  to  the 
same  people  about  the  same  events.  If,  then, 
the  prophets  have  not  warned  us,  that  they 
are  speaking  of  another  captivity  and  an- 
other return,  the  time  of  which  is  not  de- 
fined, ought  we  not,  in  fairness,  to  under- 
stand them  as  referring  to  that  of  which 
they  have  spoken,  and  the  time  of  which 
they  have  marked  ? 

This  seems  evidently  to  be  the  captivity 
to  which  Jeremiah  refers,  29  :  14,  where  he 
says  :  ''  And  I  will  be  found  of  you,  saith 
the  Lord,  and  I  will  turn  away  your  cap- 
tivity, and  T  will  gather  you  from  all  the 
nations,  and  from  all  the  places  whither  I 
have  driven  you,  saith  the  Lord,  and  I  will 
bring  you  again  into  the  place  whence  I 
caused  you  to  be  carried  away  captive." 
That  the  prophet  here  refers  to  their  return 
from  Babylon  is  plain,  because  it  was  the 
language  of  a  letter  sent  to  the  captives  then 


106  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

in  Babylon,  and  the  time  of  the  return  was' 
stated  in  the  same  letter,  verse  10,  that  it 
would  be  after  seventy  years  were  accom- 
plished at  Babylon.  This  is  so  plain  that  I 
believe  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion  on 
the  passage. 

Soon  after  this  the  prophet  Jeremiah  is 
sent  with  another  and  still  more  encouraging 
message  to  the  Jews,  occupying  the  oOth 
and  33d  chapters,  in  which  he  v/as  not  only 
to  tell  them  that  they  should  be  restored 
from  their  captivity,  but  also  that  they 
should  remain  in  their  own  land  until  Christ 
should  come,  or  the  Branch.  But  he  does  not 
intimate  that  he  spoke  of  another  captivity 
and  return,  except  so  far  as  such  as  Mr.  D. 
N.  Lord  and  others,  think  they  can  gather  it 
from  obscure  hints.  Why  then  should  we  not 
understand  him  as  referring  to  the  same  re- 
turn which  was  to  go  on  till  Christ's  death  ? 
Surely  this  is  the  most  natural ;  while,  if  Mr. 
Lord's  views  are  right,  then  these  rich  lega- 
cies are  forfeited  by  the  friends  of  Christ, 
and  secured  to  his  enemies.  But  did  not 
the  prophet  speak  of  the  Lord's  people,  while 
the  present  Jews  are  of  their  father  the 
Devil?  Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    XI. 

Dear  Sir  : — Before  entering  upon  the  in- 
quiry what  legacies  are  yet  due  to  the  seed 
of  Abraham,  as  now  found,  it  may  be  proper 
to  answer  two  objections  that  may  arise  in 
your  mind  a  little  more  distinctly  than  here- 
tofore. 

I.  That  if  the  prophets  did  not  teach  the 
return  of  the  present  Jews,  yet  Christ  did. 
If  so,  he  spoke  of  those  who  were,  according 
to  his  ow^n  showing,  John  8  :  44,  the  children 
of  their  father  the  devil,  and  not,  as  they 
claimed  to  be,  v.  33,  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
and  therefore  what  he  said  of  them  could  not 
be  even  explanatory  of  what  Moses  and  the 
prophets  foretold  of  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
which  seed  always  included,  and  still  in- 
cludes, all  true  believers.  The  prophets 
spoke  of  the  friends,  and  Christ  spoke  of 
the  enemies  of  the  gospel.  But  where  has 
Christ  taught  that  those  enemies  whose  cap- 


•lOS  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

tivity  and  dispersion  he  had  plainly  declared 
should  ever  be  restored  ?  Christ  says,  Luke 
21  :  24,  '  There  shall  be  great  distress  in  the 
land. and  wrath  among  the  people,  and  they 
shall  fall  by  the  sword  and  shall  be  led  away 
captive  into  all  nations,  and  Jerusalem  shall 
be  trodden  down  of  the  Grentiles  until  the 
time  of  the  Grentiles  be  fulfilled.'  Here 
their  present  captivity  and  sutlerings  are  as 
plainly  foretold  as  their  captivity  in  Babylon 
by  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.  But 
there  is  not  a  word  of  what  is  to  be  their  con- 
dition after  the  time  of  the  Gentiles  is  ful- 
filled ;  and,  therefore,  we  cannot  know  from 
this  that  Christ  does  not  refer  to  the  end  of  the 
world  ;  and  if  not,  what  will  be  their  condi- 
tion after  that  time  ?  So  when  Christ  said 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  Mat.  23  :  39, 
•*' Ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth  till  ye  shall 
say.  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.'  This  was  said  before  the  se- 
paration of  the  believer  from  the  unbeliever, 
and  while  Israel  was  yet  the  people  of  God, 
and  not  to  those  who  were  after  this  cut  off 
by  the  penalty  of  the  Mosaic  law,  and  it  can- 
not, therefore,  apply  with  certainty  to  those 


LETTETS    TO    A   MILLENARIAN.  109 

who  were  afterward  excinded,but  seems  in- 
tended to  encourage  the  believing  Jew. 
But  if  it  did  to  unbelievers,  is  there  a  word 
about  a  general  return  there  ?  While  the 
Old  Testament  prophets  not  only  declare  that 
their  return  to  their  fathers'  land  was  as  cer- 
tain as  the  return  of  the  sun  and  the  moon, 
but  point  out  the  year  when  this  return  is  to 
commence,  and  the  person  by  whom  it  is  to 
be  effected,  Christ,  at  most,  gives  us  but 
a  doubtful  hint.  Now  how  can  we  account 
for  this  fact,  if  Christ  intended  that  the 
church  should  strive  and  pray  for  it  ?  The 
prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  from  Moses 
to  Malachi,  reiterated  the  return  of  Israel 
from  the  Babylonish  captivity,  at  the  end  of 
70  years  and  onward  to  Christ,  over  and 
over  again, in  the  plainest  terms, to  encourage 
them  to  pray  for  it  as  Daniel  did— Dan.  9, 
and  to  strive  for  it  when  the  time  came.  Vv^hy 
then  did  not  Ciirist,  or  any  of  his  apostles, 
tell  us  plainly  that  these  excinded  Jews 
would  at  a  future  period  return  in  mass,  as 
the  church  or  to  the  church,  and  direct  His 
people  to  strive  and  pray  for  it,  if  that  were 
his  purpose  ?  Nothing  would  have  been 
10 


110  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

easier  than  for  Christ,  after  he  predicted 
their  dispersion,  to  have  told  of  their  return, 
as  the  prophets,  if  that  had  been  his  purpose, 
and  of  his  rule  over  them  in  person,  but  he 
never  did  ;  and  shall  we  venture  to  add  this 
to  his  sayings,  and  direct  the  church  to  strive, 
and  pray  for  it,  when  Christ  has  never  plainly 
directed  us  to  pray  or  strive  for  such  a  re- 
sult ? 

Those  who  insist  that  the  present  Jews 
will  return  in  mass,  or  as  a  nation,  ought  to 
give  a  good  reason  why  Christ  did  not  more 
plainly  reveal  it,  as  the  prophets  of  old  did. 
In  general,  the  New  Testament  writers  are 
more  plain  and  explicit  than  the  Old.  Why 
not  in  this,  if  the  Jews  as  such  were  to  re- 
turn ?  Christ,  in  the  parable  of  the  noble- 
man, seems  to  give  us  the  true  reason  why 
he  said  nothing  of  their  return,  or  our  striv- 
ing to  bring  them  back  as  a  nation  or  society 
by  themselves.  They  were  to  be  cut  off.  '  But 
those  mine  enemies  who  would  not  that  I 
should  reign  over  them,  bring  hither  and 
slay  them  before  me.' 

Obj.  2.  But  if  Christ  has  not  predicted  the 
return  of  Israel  plainly,  surely  Paul  has  in 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  Ill 

the  11th  chap,  of  Romans.  If  so,  it  must  be 
in  the  11th,  25th  &  26th  verses  :  '  Nowif  the 
fall  of  them  be  the  riches  of  the  world,  and  the 
diminishing  of  them  the  riches  of  the  Gren- 
tiles,  how  much  more  their  fulness  ?  For  I 
would  not,  brethren,  that  ye  should  be  igno- 
rant of  this  mystery  (lest  ye  should  be  wise 
in  your  own  conceits),  that  blindness  in  part 
has  happened  to  Israel  until  the  fulness  of 
the  Grentiles  be  come  in.  And  so  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved.'  Now,  are  these  predictions 
of  the  return  of  the  present  Jews  ?  If  so, 
they  are  surely  very  obscure.  How  differ- 
ent from  that  of  Jeremiah  29  :  10,  *  For  thus 
saith  the  Lord,  that  after  70  years  be  ac- 
complished, at  Babylon,  I  will  visit  you,  and 
perform  my  good  word  toward  you  in  caus- 
ing you  to  return  to  this  place ;'  or  Jeremiah 
23  :  3,  'I  will  gather  the  remnant  of  my  flock 
out  of  all  countries  whither  I  have  driven 
them,  and  I  will  bring  them  again  to  their 
fold  ;'  or  24  :  6,  '  For  I  will  set  mine  eyes  on 
them  for  good,  and  I  will  bring  them  again 
to  this  land  ;'  or  Ezekiel  37  :  21—25.  Such 
is  the  clearness  of  the  predictions  of  the 
prophets,   relative  to    the  return   from  the 


112  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

Babylonish  captivity.  Now  if  Paul  intended 
to  foretell  the  return  of  the  present  Jews 
who  reject  Christ,  in  mass,  as  the  churcn  or 
to  the  church,  and  thereby  to  make  it  the 
duty  of  the  church  to  pray  for  and  seek  to 
hasten  that  event,  how  can  we  account 
for  the  fact  that  he  did  not,  as  the  prophets, 
tell  us  plainly  that  it  would  be  so,  and  the 
time  when  it  would  be,  so  that  she  might 
know  and  do  her  duty  when  the  time 
came  ? 

Did  the  Lord  intend  that  the  church  should 
pray  for  the  return  of  the  Jews  for  ages  and 
generations,  and  never  see  the  slightest 
answer  to  her  prayers,  or  know  when  she 
had  a  right  to  expect  it  ?  Not  so  with  the 
return  of  the  Jews  from  Babylon.  But  he 
told  them  plainly  that  they  should  return, 
and  the  very  year  it  should  commence,  and 
even  the  person  by  whom  it  should  be  ef- 
fected, so  that  they  might  know  how  to  pray 
and  when  to  expect  an  answer.  And  they 
did  pray,  and  were  heard. —  See  Daniel  9. 

But  let  us  now  examine  the  11th  chapter 
of  Romans  a  little  more  carefully,  and  see 
if  it  does  clearly,  or  even  obscurely,  teach  us 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  113 

that  the  Jews  will  ever  return  in  mass  as 
the  church  or  to  the  church. 

The  leading  object  of  the  apostle  in  his 
epistle  to  the  Romans  was  not  to  show  what 
would  be  the  future  destiny  of  the  Jews, 
but  to  show  that  hereafter  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles  were  to  be  saved  by  faith  in  Christ. 
What  he  says,  therefore,  of  the  future  des- 
tiny of  the  Jews  is  rather  incidental  than 
direct,  in  his  attempt  to  teach  both  their 
duty. 

In  the  first  ten  chapters  he  addresses  him- 
self principally  to  the  Jews,  and  speaks  of  the 
Gentiles  in  the  third  person,  showing  to  the 
Jews  that  according  to  their  own  prophets, 
whenChrist  came  and  fulfilled  their  law, there 
would  no  longer  be  any  distinction  kept  up 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  as  before.  That 
after  this  he  only  would  be  a  Jew  which 
was  one  inwardly,  and  that  circumcision 
would  be  of  the  heart,  in  the  spirit,  Romans 
2  :  29;  and  that  they  were  not  now,  nor  ever 
had  been,  all  Israel  which  were  of  Israel, 
and  proves  by  Hosea  and  Isaiah,  that  here- 
after believing  Gentiles  would  be  largely  in- 
corporated in  the  church  of  Israel,  and  be 
10* 


114  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

fellow-heirs  of  the  promises  to  Abraham, 
while  many  of  the  Jews  would  be  out  off, 
because  they  rejected  Christ,  9  :  24 — 27, 
apparently  to  soften  the  prejudice  of  the 
Jews.  He  then  shows,  10  :  11 — 13,  that 
henceforth  there  was  to  be  no  difference  be- 
tween Jew  and  G-reek,  thus  reconciling  tlie 
Jewish  converts  to  the  reception  of  the  Gen- 
tiles more  largely  into  their  church  than  be- 
fore, as  their  own  prophets  had  taught 
would  be  the  case  when  Christ  came,  and 
closes  the  10th  chapter  with  a  quotation 
from  Moses  and  Isaiah,  showing  that  accord- 
ing to  them  many  Gentiles  were  to  be  con- 
verted and  many  Jews  were  to  be  cut  off. 
But  after  quoting  Isaiah  in  a  way  that  might 
seem  to  imply  that  the  Jews  were  to  be  re- 
jected, and  the  Gentile  church  was  to  be 
substituted  in  their  place,  and  to  make  it 
plain  that  they  were  not,  he  asks  the 
question,  11:  1,  ^I  say  then,  hath  God  cast 
away  his  people?'  He  then  turns  to  the 
Gentiles,  and  shows  them  that  God  had  not 
cast  away  his  people  Israel  and  substituted 
them  in  their  place,  but  only  received  and 
incorporated    the   believing  Gentije  in  the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  115 

diminished  cliurcli  of  Israel.  That  they  were 
not  the  tree,  but  only  branches  engrafted  into 
the  Abrahamic  tree  ;  that  what  they  had  of 
holiness  flowed  from  the  covenant  with 
Abraham,  and  seems  to  warn  them  against 
th<3  supposition  and  the  danger  of  supposing 
that  they  were  now  the  favorite  church  and 
people  of  God,  by  the  cutting  off  of  all  the 
Jews.  Not  so;  the  Jewish  church  still  lived 
in  the  believing. part  of  it,  and  Ikey  were  to 
be  engrafted  in  it — and  that  however  large 
the  number  of  Gentile  converts,  they  were 
still  but  branches,  and  not  the  root. 

In  examining  the  question,  What  does 
Paul  teach  in  this  11th  chapter  in  reference 
to  the  future  destiny  of  Israel,  it  seems  im- 
portant to  determine  to  whom  he  refers  in 
the  7th  verse,  by  the  term  Israel,  and  by  the 
relatives  in  verses  11,  12, 14,  and  15,  which 
seem  to  refer  to  the  same  people  to  whom 
Israel  does  in  the  7th  verse.  Does  he  mean 
the  nation  of  Israel,  in  distinction  from  the 
Gentiles,  or  the  present  unbelieving  part  of 
Israel  in  distinction  from  himself  and  other 
believers  ?  We  think  he  uses  it  in  the  former 
sense,  as  the  prophets  did.     To  this  t)pinion 


116  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

we  are  led,  first,  by  the  fact  that  this  seems  to 
be  the  general  meaning  given  to  this  term  by 
the  New  Testament  writers.  The  term  Israel 
is  used  some  thirty-five  times  in  the  Nev/ Tes- 
tament, and  with  the  exception  of  its  use  in 
this  Epistle,  if  it  be  an  exception,  seems  al- 
ways to  refer  to  the  nation  of  Israel  in  dis- 
tinction from  the  Grentiles.  On  this  subject 
you  may  satisfy  yourself  by  turning  to  Mat. 
2  :  20  ;  8  :  10  ;  9  :  33  ;  19  :  28  ;  Luke  2 
32  and  34  ;  4  :  25  and  27  ;  7:9;  22  :  30 
and  John  3  :  10.  Also  ,  Acts  1 :  6  ;  2  :  22 
3:  12;  5:35;  4:27;  5:  31;  13:  16,  17, 
24  ;  21 :  28  ;  28  :  20.  In  all  these  cases  we 
think  it  will  be  admitted  that  the  term  Is- 
rael is  used,  as  in  the  Old  Testament,  to  dis- 
tinguish the  circumcised  Jew,  or  all  Israel, 
from  the  Grentiles. 

We  now  come  to  Paul's  use  of  this  term 
in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  though  ad- 
dressed to  the  Christians  in  Rome,  both 
Jews  and  Grentiles.  In  this  Epistle,  we  find 
the  term  ten  times,  viz  : — chap.  9  :  6,  27, 
and  31 ;  10  :  1,  19,  and  21 ;  11 :  2,  7,  25, 
and  27.  Of  these,  we  find  that  three  times 
he  uses  it  as  quotations  from  the  prophets, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  117 

viz:— chap.  9:  27;  10:  21;  11:2.  Here 
he  must  use  it  as  the  prophets  did,  as  dis- 
tinguishing the  whole  of  Israel  who  were 
not  cut  off  by  the  penalty  of  their  own  laws, 
from  all  G-entiles  who  were  not  incorporated 
with  Israel.  Again,  in  chap.  9  :  31,  he  uses 
it  in  distinction  from  the  Gentiles  mentioned 
in  verse  30.  The  Grentiles  had  obtained,  and 
Israel  had  not  obtained,  the  righteousness  of 
G-od.  So  in  10  :  19.  He  certainly  does  not 
mean  here  to  intimate  that  he  and  the  other 
believing  Jews  had  become  Gentiles. 

No^v  if  the  New  Testament  writers,  in- 
cluding Paul  himself,  generally  used  the 
term  Israel  to  distinguish  the  circumcised 
Jew,  both  believer  and  unbeliever,  from  the 
Gentiles,  then  Paul  would  use  it  here  to 
mean  the  same,  unless  he  plainly  stated  that 
he  did  not,  which  he  has  not  done.  On  the 
contrary,  when  he  asks  the  question  sug- 
gested by  the  quotation  from  Isaiah,  in  the 
preceding  verse,  "  I  say  then,  hath  God  cast 
aw^ay  his  people  ?"  (Israel)  he  answers, 
"  God  forbid,  for  I  also  am  an  Israelite." 
So,  also,  2  Cor.  11 :  22  :  "Are  they  (the 
unbelievers)  Hebrews?   so  am  I;  are  they 


118  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

Israelites?  so  am  I" — though  a  baptized  be- 
liever ;  and  so  were  all  Jews  who  believed  as 
much  as  before.  Does  not,  then,  the  term 
Israel,  in  the  7th  verse,  include  the  whole 
nation  who  claimed  that  name,  without  ref- 
erence to  their  character  ?  Israel  hath  not 
(as  a  whole)  attained  that  which  he  seek- 
eth  for.  Individuals  who  looked  for  less, 
had  ;  but  as  a  nation,  they  had  not.  Is 
not  this  view  confirmed  by  the  term  used  in 
verse  12,  ^'  if  the  diminishing  of  them,'^^ 
the  Israel  of  the  7th  verse  ?  Now  how  were 
they  diminished  ?  By  cutting  off  the  be- 
liever from  the  nation,  the  Abrahamic  tree, 
or  the  unbeliever  ?  The  unbeliever,  surely. 
Now  the  relative  "  them,"  in  verse  12, 
seems  to  refer  to  the  same  Israel  as  in  verses 
1  and  7  ;  and  if  Israel  has  been  diminished 
by  cutting  off  the  unbelievers,  and  yet  ex- 
ists, then  is  it  not  the  nation  or  only  Israel 
that  now  exists  ?  AYe  think  you  must  admit 
that  when  Israel  was  diminished,  it  was  by 
cutting  off  the  unbelievers.  How  else  is 
she  to  be  filled  up  again  ?  and  must  not 
then  the  relative  refer  to  the  nation  in 
distinction  from  the  G-entiles? 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  119 

We  have  been  thus  particular,  because  on 
the  meaning  of  the  term  Israel  in  verse  7, 
and  the  relatives  referring  to  them,  much 
depends. 

Paul  had  rejDeatedly  proved  in  this  Epis- 
tle, from  the  prophets,  that,  when  Christ 
came,  the  G-entiles  were  to  receive  the  offers 
of  the  gospel,  and  accept  them,  while  the 
Jews  in  general  would  reject  them.  This 
he  plainly  proves  from  Moses  and  Isaiah,  in 
chap.  10  :  19—21  :  ''  First,  Moses  saith,  I 
will  provoke  you  to  jealousy  by  them  that 
are  no  people,  and  by  a  foolish  nation  I  will 
anger  you  ;"  no  doubt  alluding  to  the  call 
of  the  Grentiles.  "  But  Esaias  is  very  bold, 
and  saith,  I  was  found  of  them  that  sought 
me  not,  I  was  made  manifest  unto  them 
that  asked  not  after  me  ;"  referring,  as  it 
would  seem,  to  the  way  in  which  the  Gen- 
tiles would  receive  the  truth,  and  be  re- 
ceived of  Christ.  Yerse  21  :  "  But  to  Is- 
rael he  saith.  All  day  long  I  have  stretched 
forth  my  hand  to  a  disobedient  and  gain- 
saying people  ;"  as  though  they  were  to  be 
wholly  cast  off,  and  the  Grentiles  to  be  re- 
ceived in  their  place ;  and  so  the  covenant 


120  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

with  Abraham  was  to  be  broken.  Hence, 
to  avoid  this  mistake,  addressing  himself 
now  to  the  Grentile  converts,  he  says,  verse 
1  :  "I  say  then,  hath  G-od  cast  away  his 
people?"  Is  there  an  end  to  Israel,  and  to 
the  covenant  with  Abraham,  and  has  the 
Gentile  church  now  taken  its  place,  into 
which  the  believing  Jews  are  now  to  be 
merged  ?  To  which  he  answers  emphat- 
ically, "  God  forbid  ;  for  I  also  am  an  Isra- 
elite of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,"  and  am  a  living  witness  that 
God  hath  not  cast  away  his  people,  nor  bro- 
ken his  covenant  with  Abraham,  nor  with 
David,  whose  house  he  is  building  up  by  the 
incorporation  of  Gentile  converts,  as  fore- 
told by  the  prophets  ;  see  Acts  15  :  13-16, 
and  as  I  shall  presently  show  by  the  figure 
of  a  tree.  "  God  hath  not  cast  away  his 
people  whom  he  foreknew."  Are  you  not 
aware  that  Elijah  once  thought  that  God 
had  cast  away  all  Israel  bat  himself?  ,"  Bat 
what  saith  the  answer  of  God  to  him  ?  I 
have  reserved  unto  myself  seven  thousand 
men  who  have  not  bowed  the  knee  to  the 
image  of  Baal,"  and   thereby  incurred   the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  121 

penalty  of  excision  from  Israel.  In  these 
the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  nation  of  Israel, 
was  perpetuated  then,  and  so  now  the 
seed  of  Abraham  are  perpetuated  in  the 
elected  remnant  of  verses  5  and  7,  who  have 
not  incurred  the  penalty  of  excision  by  re- 
jecting Christ  ;  and  these  were  the  seed  by 
sovereign  choice,  as  that  of  Jacob,  while 
Esau  was  left.  But  what  then  ?  Israel  (as  a 
whole)  hath  not  attained  that  which  he 
seeketh  for^  as  all  the  children  of  Abraham 
did  not.  But  the  elected  remnant  had,  ''  and 
the  rest  were  blinded,"  as  had  been  foretold 
by  their  own  prophets. — Verse  8. 

Here,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  we  will 
number  Israel  and  the  relatives  they  in  the 
11th  verse,  and  them  in  the  12th,  and  Israel 
in  the  2oth  :  all  which  seem  to  refer  to  the 
same  people ;  also  the  elected  of  the  7th  verse, 
the  Gentile  converts  to  be  ensrrafted  into  the 
Jewish  tree,  and  the  returning  Jew  referred 
to  by  the  "  some  of  them  "  at  the  close  of  the 
14th  verse,  calling  the  whole  nation  or 
army  of  Israel  one  thousand,  the  elected 
remnant,  verses  5  and  7,  one  hundred,  the 
converts  from  the  Gentiles  five  thousand, 
11 


122  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

and  the  Jews  that  repented  and  turned, 
verse  14,  twenty.  Keeping  these  numbers  in 
view  as  the  relative  or  supposed  relative 
strength  of  each,  let  us  examine  what  fol- 
lows. We  have  seen  that  Israel  of  verse  7 
had  not  obtained  that  which  he  expected, 
more  than  the  eight  children  of  Abraham. 
But  the  elected  number,  who,  like  the  elected 
Jacob,  and  who  were  by  the  purpose  of 
G-od,  like  Jacob,  the  heirs  of  promise,  had.  So 
that  the  true  Israel  of  the  new  covenant  con- 
tinued in  them,  while  the  rest,  like  Esau 
and  the  seven  children  of  Abraham,  were  not 
counted.  This  he  says  was  according  to 
what  Grod  had  foretold,  verse  8,  and  onward 
to  verse  11,  where  Paul  asks  again,  I  "say 
then  have  they  stumbled  [merely]  that  they 
should  fall,"  or  be  diminished  from  one 
thousand  to  one  hundred,  when  the  promise 
of  G-od  to  Abraham  was,  that  his  seed  should 
be  greatly  increased  ?  To  this  he  answers 
emphatically,  "G-od  forbid.  But  rather 
through  their  fall  salvation  is  come"  to  five 
thousand  G-entiles,  who  by  believing  in 
Christ  have  become  the  seed  of  Abraham, 
as  the  same  apostle  says.  Gal.  3  :  29  :     "If 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  123 

ye  be  Christ's  then  are  ye  Abraham's  seed, 
and  heirs  according  to  the  promise ;"  and  4  : 
28,  "Now  we,  brethren,  believers,"  indistinc- 
tion  from  unbelievers,  "  as  Isaac  was,  are  the 
children  of  promise  ;"  so  that  by  this  diminu- 
tion of  the  original  Israel,  as  a  mysterious 
sequence,  five  thousand  Grentile  converts 
were  enrolled  in  the  broken  army  of  Israel, 
or,  as  Paul  says,  verse  17,  grafted  in  among 
them,  and  thus  made  them  much  more 
numerous  than  before,  and  therefore  their 
fall  was  not  to  lessen  them  from  one 
thousand  to  one  hundred,  but  to  increase 
them  from  one  thousand  to  five  thousand  one 
hundred.  Yersel2.  Nowifthe" diminishing 
of  them  "  be  such  a  rich  blessing  to  the  Gren- 
tiles,  how  much  more  will  this  enlargement  of 
them  be, — here  called  their  fulness  or  multi- 
tude? Before,  as  a  nation,  they  were  one 
thousand  strong,  and  now,  though  nine 
hundred  had  been  cut  off  as  the  penalty  for 
rejecting  Christ,  see  Acts  3 :  23,  yet  they  were 
five  thousand  one  hundred  strong.  Before 
they  had  one  hundred  believers  to  publish 
the  gospel  of  Christ,  and  now  they  had  five 
thousand  one  hundred.     How   much  more 


124 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 


would  this  multitude  do  toward  the  conver- 
sion of  the  world?  Paul  here  seems  to 
show  both  that  Grod  had  not  cast  off  Israel, 
and  how  the  promise  that  he  would  make 
Abraham  the  father  of  many  nations,  Gen. 
17  :  4,  was  to  be  fulfilled.  By  this  enlarge- 
ment of  the  number  and  glory  of  Israel  from 
the  G-e utiles,  Paul  hoped  to  lead  a  few  of 
his  Jewish  kindred,  in  whom  he  felt  the 
deepest  interest,  to  repent  and  turn.  His 
highest  hope  was  only  a  few,  "some  of 
them,"  verse  12,  and  then  adds  :  "  For  if  the 
casting  away  of  them  be  the  reconciling  of 
the  world,"  or  result  in  sending  the  gospel 
through  the  world,  what  shall  the  receiving 
of  them,  twenty,  or,  "some  of  them,"  be,  but 
life  from  the  dead,  as  the  return  of  the  prodi- 
gal to  his  father?  Yerse  16.  "  For  if  the  root 
be  holy,"  the  first  hundred,  who  are  still  to  be 
regarded  by  you  G-entiles  as  the  root  and 
stock  of  the  Jewish  tree  or  church,  "  so  are 
the  branches,"  all  of  them,  whether  engrafted 
from  you  Gentiles,  to  whom  I  am  speaking, 
or  from  these  dead  branches  of  Israel  that 
were  cut  off  from  the  Abrahamic  tree.  Yerse 
17 — 24:   And  now  while  he  warns  these 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  125 

newly  enrolled  recruits  in  the  army  of  Israel 
to  beware  lest  they  should  be  elated  and 
stumble  and  fall  as  the  nine  hundred  had, 
he  shows  more  clearly,  under  the  figure  of  a 
tree,  the  process  by  which  they  were 
brought  into  the  church  or  in  covenant  with 
Grod,  not  by  a  substitution  of  the  Gentiles 
in  place  of  the  Jews,  and  a  G-entile  church 
formed,  into  which  the  Jewish  church  was 
merged,  for  the  Jewish  tree  still  lives  in 
this  elected  remnant,  (as  it  did  in  the  seven 
thousand  in  the  days  of  Elias,)  into  which 
the  Gentile  Christians  are  engrafted,  and 
are  to  be,  till  it  shall  be  much  larger  than 
before.  Besides,  under  the  new  covenant 
there  were  to  be  none  but  living  branches  in 
this  tree,  which  was  not  so  under  the  old. 

Thus  far,  then,  we  see  nothing  like  a 
direct  or  even  implied  assertion  that  more 
than  a  very  few  of  the  Jews  are  ever  to  re- 
turn to  the  church.  , 

But  after  all,  does  not  Paul  clearly  teach 
in  verses  25  and  26,  that  hereafter  all  the 
present  scattered  Jews  are  to  be  brought 
back  and  to  be  saved  ?  Let  us  see :  verse 
25,  he  says,  ''  For  I  w^ould  not,  brethren,  that 
11* 


12d         letters  to  a  millenarian. 

you  should  be  ignorant  of  this  mystery  (lest 
ye  should  be  wise  in  your  own  conceits),''  or 
too  much  elated — "  That  blindness  in  part 
has  happened  to  Israel,"  not  a  partial  blind- 
ness to  all,  but  a  total  blindness  to  a  large 
part  of  Israel,  as  in  verse  7,  the  nine 
hundred,  who  for  rejecting  Christ,  were  cut 
off  from  Israel,  according  to  the  prediction 
of  Moses,  see  Acts  3  :  23  ;  and  as  shown  by 
the  figure  of  the  tree,  to  which  figure  the 
term  /or,  at  the  commencement  of  the  verse, 
seems  to  refer.  But  how  lonof  is  this  blind- 
ness  of  a  part  of  the  Jews  to  last  ?  Paul 
answers,  till  the  fulness  or  multitude  of  the 
(i  entiles  be  come  in.  Perhaps  Paul  means 
to  say,  till  all  the  elected  Grentiles  be  con- 
verted. That  they  are  to  remain  in  their 
present  scattered  state  in  all  nations,  to  be  a 
beacon  of  warning  to  the  church  before  their 
eyes  in  every  land,  till  all  the  Gentiles  be 
come  in,  as  the  plates  made  of  the  censers 
of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  princes  who 
rebelled  against  Moses,  which  the  Lord  re- 
quired to  be  laid  as  a  covering  on  the  altar, 
were  to  be  before  the  eyes  of  Israel  as  a 
warning  ever  after.  This  seems  to  be  the 
most  natural  construction  of  verse  24. 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  127 

But  what  then  are  we  to  make  of  the 
next  sentence,  ''  And  so  all  Israel  shall  be 
saved?"  Does  not  Paul  himself  show  its 
meaning,  by  the  quotations  which  follow?  He 
surely  does  not  mean  all  that  rejected  Christ, 
for  millions  of  them  have  died  in  unbelief. 
Nor  is  it  probable  that  he  means  that  after 
the  last  Grentile  is  converted,  that  then  at 
once,  all  the  unbelieving  Jews,  that  part  of 
Israel  that  were  blinded,  would  be  saved, 
for  he  generally  uses  the  term  "Israel" 
as  embracing  all  the  nation  under  the  old 
covenant :  so  he  seems  to  use  it  in  v.  25,  a 
part  of  whom  were  blinded  and  a  part  not. 
Does  he  not  then  mean.  So,  in  this  iva?/,  and 
not  after  this,  shall  all  Israel  be  saved  ? — i.  e. 
so,  as  I  have  shown  you  under  the  figure  of 
the  tree, — by  cutting  off  all  the  unbelieving 
branches  and  engrafting  none  but  believers, 
and  thus  enforcing  the  truth  on  the  mind 
of  the  Gentile  converts,  that  they  or  their 
children  vv^ould-  no  more  be  spared  than  the 
unbelieving  Jews,  if  they  were  not  careful 
to  live  for  Grod  ?  Under  the  old  covenant, 
many  were  truly  of  Israel,  who  were  not 
saved.      But    under     the     new    covenant 


128  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

with  Israel,  which,  Jer.  31 :  31-4,  said  the 
Lord  would  make  with  the  house  of  Israel 
and  the  house  of  Judah,  and  under  which 
Paul  says,  Hebrews  8  :  1,6,  8-13,  we  now 
live,  we  are  told,  as  Paul  tells  us  here,  that  all 
Israel  shall  be  saved,  and  under  the  figure 
of  the  tree  he  shows  how  it  will  be  done, 
and  so  in  this  way,  all  Israel  shall  be  saved. 
Paul  then  brings  his  proofs  ;  as  it  is  written, 
"  There  shall  come  out  of  Zion  the  Deliverer, 
and  shall  turn  away  ungodliness  from  Jacob, 
for  this  is  my  covenant,"  &c.  Was  not  this 
deliverer  Christ,  who,  by  the  law  of  Moses, 
cut  off  all  unbelieving  Jews,  and  by  his 
own,  allowed  none  in  but  true  believers, 
and  so  turned  away  all  ungodliness  from 
Jacob?  Indeed,  from  the  very  nature  of 
that  covenant,  as  described  by  Jer.  31  : 
31-4,  and  quoted  by  Paul,  Heb.  8,  as  now 
in  actual  operation,  it  would  seem  that  no 
unbeliever  could  belong  to  the  house  of 
Israel,  with  which  it  is  made.  That  we  are 
now  living  under  that  covenant  which  Jer- 
emiah said  the  Lord  would,  at  a  future  day, 
make  with  Israel  and  Judah,  seems  to  be 
made  plain  by  Paul,  in  his  Epistle  to  the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  129 

Hebrews,  for  lie  says,  8  :  1,  "  Now  of  the 
things  which  we  have  spoken,  this  is  the 
sum  :  We  have  such  an  high  priest,"  [not 
will  have]  v.  6,  "  who  is  the  Mediator  of  a 
better  covenant,  [not  will  be]  which  was 
established  upon  better  promises,"  [not  will 
be]  for  it  had  been  established  by  Christ, 
before  he  left  the  world,  and  then  shows 
the  nature  of  this  covenant,  by  quoting  it 
as  foretold  by  Jeremiah,  and  wherein  those 
better  promises  consisted  ;  and  then  in 
chap.  9:1,  and  onward,  speaks  of  the  old 
covenant  as  past. 

Now  if  these  views  are  correct,  then 
Paul  merely  shows  how,  under  the  new- 
covenant,  all  who  are  in  this  eovenant  rela- 
tion will  be  saved  ;  and  not  that  the  people 
now  calling  themselves  Jews  are  ever  all 
to  be  saved,  but  rather  intimates  that  they 
w^illnot. 

Does  not  this  view  gain  a  little  strength 
from  the  declaration  of  James,  Acts  15  :  16, 
where  he  says,  that  the  prophecy  of  Amos 
was  fulfilled,  in  raising  up  the  house  of  Da- 
vid by  the  conversion  and  reception  to  the 
church  of  G-entile  converts  ? 


130  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

Jeremiah  had  stated,  "  Thus  saith  the 
lord,  Behold  the  days  come,  that  I  will 
make  a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of 
Israel  and  the  house  of  udah."  And  this 
covenant  was  to  be  so  formed  that  all  in  it 
would  be  true  believers  ;  and  here  Paul 
seems  to  show  us  in  what  way  this  would 
be  done  :  under  the  figure  of  a  tree,  from 
which  all  the  dead  branches  would  be  cut 
off,  and  none  but  living  ones  would  be 
grafted  in.  And  then,  v.  26,  says,  "  And 
so  in  this  way  all  Israel  shall  be  saved." 
For  this  new  covenant  was  to  be  with  Israel, 
and  then  brings  his  proofs  from  the  proph- 
ets, showing  to  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  by 
whom  this  was  to  be  done,  as  it  is  written, 
'*  There  shall  come  out  of  Zion  the  Deliv- 
erer, and  shall  turn  ungodliness  from  Jacob." 
This  Christ  did  by  repealing  the  old,  and 
establishing  the  new  rules  of  entering,  or  of 
being  admitted,  to  a  covenant  relation  with 
him.  Isaiah  says  the  Redeemer  shall  come 
to  Zion,  while  Paul  says  he  shall  come  out 
of  Zion.  Dr.  Chalmers  thinks  that  these  two 
inspired  men  reveal  to  us  a  glimpse  of  the 
same  scene,  at  a  little  different,  though  not 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  131 

distant  periods.  Did  he  not  come  to  Zion 
when  he  came  into  the  world,  or  when  he 
first  taught ;  and  did  he  not  come  out  of  Zion 
when  he  had.  died  ?  For  then  it  was  that  he 
established  the  rules  of  admission  to  cove- 
nant relation  with  G-od,  to  which  Paul 
seems  to  refer.  All  which  was  done  v/ith  Is- 
rael, for  at  that  time  there  were  no  more  G-en- 
tiles  in  the  church  than  had  always  been. 
I  would  not  have  you  understand  that  I 
feel  very  confident  of  the  correctness  of  this 
exposition,  but  only  that  it  seems  to  me 
rather  more  plausible,  and  more  in  accor- 
dance with  the  figure  of  the  tree  and  Paul's 
proof,  than  to  suppose  that  he  means  at 
some  time,  no  one  knows  when,  for  it  is  not 
foretold,  one  class  of  the  excluded  children 
of  Abraham  will  all  be  converted. 

Besides,  the  fall  of  Israel  was  to  be  the 
riches  or  the  enriching  of  the  Grentiles  ;  it 
was  to  lead  to  their  extended  conversion. 
Now  if,  as  Paul  says,  their  blindness  is  to 
last  till  the  multitudes  of  the  Grentiles  be 
come  in,  or  to  the  end  of  the  world  ;  if  these 
cut  off  Jews  are  to  be,  as  they  heretofore 
have  been,  to  the  end  of  the  world,  an  evi- 


132  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

dence  of  the  truth  of  the  sacred  scriptures, 
and  a  beacon  of  warnig  of  the  fearful  conse- 
quences of  rejecting  Christ,  may  not  this 
be  a  continued  means,  in  the  hands  of  G-od, 
of  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  ?  I  leave 
the  answer  with  you. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER   XII. 

Dear  Sir  : — At  the  risk  of  appearing 
tedious,  and  of  repeating  often  the  same 
thing,  I  will  once  more  call  your  attention 
to  the  prediction  of  Jeremiah  while  he 
was  in  Jerusalem,  and  while  it  w^as  not  yet 
destroyed,  bat  was  soon  to  be.  After  being 
told,  chap.  30  :  2,  to  write  in  a  book  all  the 
words  w^hich  the  Lord  had  spoken  unto  him, 
relating  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
their  captivity,  and  their  return  after 
seventy  years  to  the  land  of  Canaan,  as 
stated  chap.  29:  10,  and  assuring  them  that 
they  would  be  greatly  multiplied  and  blessed 
in  the  coming  of  Christ,  &c.,  31 :  15,  he 
adds,  31  :  31 — 34,  "  Behold,  the  days  come, 
saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will  make  a  new 
covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel  and  with 
the  house  of  Judah,  not  according  to  for 
like  to]  the  covenant  that  I  made  with  their 
fathers  in  the  day  that  I  took  them  by  the 
12 


134  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

hand  to  bring  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  &c. — But  this  shall  be  the  covenant 
that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of  Israel. 
After  those  days,  saitli  the  Lord,  I  will  put 
my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and  write  it 
in  their  hearts,  and  will  be  their  Grod  and 
they  shall  be  my  people  ;  and  they  "  (refer- 
ring again  to  the  house  of  Israel,  with  whom 
this  covenant  was  to  be  made,)  ''  shall  teach 
no  more  every  man  his  neighbor,  and 
every  man  his  brother,  saying,  Know  the 
Lord,  for  they"  (the  Israel  in  covenant) 
"shall  all  know  me  from  the  least  of  them  to 
the  greatest  of  them,  saith  the  Lord."  Now 
according  to  this  description  of  the  new  cove- 
nant, it  would  seem  that  every  man  belong- 
ing to  Israel  in  covenant  would  be  a  true 
christian,  having  the  law  of  God  written  in 
his  heart.  In  this  consisted  the  difference, 
or  a  part  of  it,  between  the  old  and, the  new 
covenant.  According  to  the  old,  all  those 
who  complied  with  a  few  of  the  external 
conditions  of  that  covenant,  though  they 
were  not  converted  men,  were  Israelites  in 
covenant,  and  heirs  to  the  land  of  Canaan, 
which  was  one  of  the  legacies  bequeathed  in 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  135 

the  first  covenant,  and  also  to  the  privileges 
and  blessings  of  the  service  of  the  temple. 
But  in  the  new  none  would  be  admitted  but 
true  converts,  who  had  the  law  written  in 
their  hearts. 

Now  our  first  inquiry  is,  when  was  this 
new  covenant  with  Israel  and  Judah  to  be 
made,  and  by  what  instrumentality  was 
this  change  to  be  effected  ?  Has  that  new 
covenant  been  made  with  Israel  and  the 
change  been  effected,  or  is  it  yet  future? 
If  that  new  covenant  has  been  made  with 
Israel  and  Judah,  then  according  to  the 
meaning  of  Jeremiah,  all  who  are  in  it,  and 
so  belong  to  that  Israel  with  which  it  is 
made,  must  know  the  Lord,  must  be  true 
converts.     To  this  view  my  mind  inclines. 

But  let  us  see  what  Paul  teaches  the 
Jews  or  Hebrews  on  this  'subject.  Paul 
wrote  his  epistle  to  them  about  thirty  years 
after  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  conse- 
quently after  the  ceremonial  law  was  ended 
by  its  being  fulfilled  in  Christ. 

After  Paul  had  clearly  established  the 
superiority  of  the  priesthood  of  Christ  over 
that  of  the  Aaronic  priesthood,  and   said: 


136  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

chap.  7  :  22,  "  By  so  much  was  Jesus  made 
[not  will  will  be  made,]  the  surety  of  a 
better  covenant,"  he  adds,  by  way  of  sum- 
ming up  the  former  part  of  his  epistle,  chap. 
8  :  1  and  2,  "  Now  of  the  things  which  we 
have  spoken  this  is  the  sum  :  We  have  [not 
will  have,  but  we  have  now,]  such  a  high 
priest,  who  is  set  on  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne  of  the  Majesty  in  the  heavens  :  a 
minister  of  the  sanctuary,  and  of  the  true 
tabernacle,  which  the  Lord  pitched,  and  not 
man."  Then,  in  showing  what  were  the 
duties  of  the  Aaronic  priests  under  the  law 
or  old  covenant,  he  again  brings  to  light  the 
superiority  of  Christ's  priesthood  and  the 
necessity  of  his  remove  to  heaven  to  serve 
as  High  Priest :  "  For,  verse  4,  if  he  were  on 
earth  he  would  not  be  a  priest,  seeing  there 
are  priests  that  offer  gifts  according  to  the 
law,  or  old  covenant ;"  and  as  Christ  was  not 
descended  from  Levi  or  Aaron,  he  could  not 
be  a  priest  under  that  covenant,  for  accord- 
ing to  the  law  or  old  covenant  all  priests 
must  descend  from  the  tribe  of  Levi. 
Paul  then  goes  on  to  say,  verse  6:  "  But 
now   hath   he    obtained    a    more   excellent 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  137 

ministry  or  priesthood — [not  will  obtain.] 
By  how  much  also  he  is  [not  will  be,]  the 
mediator  of  a  better  covenant  which  was 
established  upon  better  promises"  (not  will 
be)  ;  verse  7,  "  For  if  that  first  covenant  had 
been  faultless,  then  should  no  place  have 
been  sought  for  the  second."  But  is  not 
this  second  and  better  covenant,  of  which 
Christ  is  now  the  priest  or  mediator,  the 
very  same  new  covenant  which  Jeremiah 
said  six  hundred  years  before  was  at  a  future 
day  to  be  made  with  the  house  of  Israel  and 
Judah."  Let  Paul  give  the  answer.  In 
proving  to  the  Jews  the  correctness  of  his 
position  according  to  their  own  prophets, 
he  quotes  Jeremiah  :  "  Behold,  the  days 
come,  saith  the  Lord,  when  I  will  make  a 
new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel  and 
the  house  Judah.  If  the  first  covenant  had 
been  faultless,  then  should-  no  place  have 
been  sought  for  the  second,"  of  which  Christ 
was  mediator.  "  For  finding  fault  with  them, 
he  saith.  Behold,  the  days  come,  when  I 
will  make  a  new  covenant  with  Israel  and 
Judah."  Paul  then  repeats  the  covenant 
from  Jeremiah,  and  says  of  this  new  or 
i2* 


138  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

second    covenant,  of  which    Christ  is  now 
mediator,  that  it  is  so  formed  that  the  heirs 
of  this  new  covenant  or  testament  shall  not 
say  one  to  another,  as  under  the  old,  know 
the  Lord — for  all  in  it  shall  know  the  Lord, 
having   the   law   written  in   their    hearts. 
Thus  Paul  proves  to  the  Jews  that  what  he 
had   said  in  reference  to  Christ  being  the 
mediator  of  the  second   covenant,  was  but 
what  Jeremiah   said  would  be  when  Christ 
came.     Now   if  this   be  so,    then  the  new 
covenant  which  Jeremiah  said   would  at  a 
future  day  be  made,  has  been  made  with 
Israel  and  Judah,   and  the  change  effected 
by  the  law  of  Christ,   and  we   are   living 
under  its  benign  influence.     So  that   under 
this   new   covenant   those     who    are    true 
believers   are   accounted    Israelites ;    hence 
Paul  says  to  the  Galatians,  3  :  29,  "If  ye  be 
Christ's,  then  are  ye  Abraham's  seed,   and 
heirs  according  to  the  promise  :"  certainly 
implying,  as  Paul  proves  in  the  4tli  chap,  of 
Gal.,  that  if  they  are  not  Christ's  then  they 
are  not  Abraham's  seed,  and  not  heirs. 

Then  to  make  this  still  more  plain,  that  the 
second  covenant  to  which  Jeremiah  refers, 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  139 

and  which   was  to  be  made   with  Israel, 
when  all  Israel  should  know  the  Lord,  was 
none  other  than  the  covenant  of  grace  of 
which     Christ    was    mediator,     he    adds, 
verse    13,     "In   that    he     saith,    A    new 
covenant,  he  hath  made  the  first   old" — so 
that   it    would  vanish  away.      But  Ras    it 
passed  away  ?     Paul  says   again,  Heb.  9  ; 
1  :    "  Then  verily  the  first   covenant  had 
also  [not  has,  for  it   was  now  done  away  ; 
but  it  had   also]    ordinances  of  divine  ser- 
vice, and  a  worldly  sanctuary."     And,  des- 
cribing again  the  service  in  the   first  tab- 
ernacle   and    covenant,    and    showing   its 
inferiority,  he  says,   verse  8  :  "  The   Holy 
Ghost  this   signifying,   that   the  way  into 
the  holiest  of  all  was  not  yet  made  manifest, 
while  as  the  first  tabernacle  was  5^et  stand- 
ing," &c.  ;  which    service,    he  says,  verse 
10,  was  "  imposed  on  them  until  the  time 
of    reformation,"    during   the    continuance 
of  the  old  covenant,  the  end  of  which,  Paul 
says,  had  come  when   Christ  died  ;  for  he 
adds,  verse  11  :  "  But  Christ  being  come, 
an  high  priest  of  good  things  to  come, — 12, 
by  his  own  blood  entered  in  once  into  the 


140  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

holy  place,  having  obtained  eternal  redemp- 
tion for  us — verse  15,  and  for  this  cause  he 
is  [not  will  be]  the  mediator  of  the  new 
testament,"  (new  covenant,  or  will.)  But 
this  new  covenant,  of  which  Christ  was 
mediator,  and  which,  as  Paul  proved,  was 
that  predicted  by  Jeremiah,  though  included 
in  the  covenant  with  Abraham,  was  not  in 
force  till  after  the  death  of  Christ,  as  Paul 
shows,  verses  16  and  17 :  ''  For  where  a 
testament  [or  will]  is,  there  must  also,  of 
necessity,  be  the  death  of  the  testator,  for  a 
testament  is  of  force  after  men  are  dead  ; 
otherwise  it  is  of  no  strength  at  all  while 
the  testator  liveth — verse  IS,  whereupon 
neither  the  first  [covenant]  testament  was 
dedicated  without  blood ;"  though  that  blood, 
as  the  covenant  itself  was,  w^as  only  typical, 
for  the  testator  or  priest  did  not  then  die  ; 
so  that,  though  this  new  testament  or  will 
was  made  with  Abraham  and  his  seed,  it 
did  not  go  in  force  till  the  death  of  Christ 
the  testator,  and  therefore  it  is  called  a  new 
covenant  or  testament.  Paul  then  carries 
on  the  parallel,  till,  chapter  10  :  9,  he  shows 
how  Christ  had  taken  away  the  first  cove- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  141 

nant  or  testament.  "  He  taketh  away  the 
first  that  he  might  establish  the  second,"  and 
then  shows  again,  verses  15  and  16,  that 
this  covenant  or  testament  bequeathed  and 
secured  salvation  to  aU  the  heirs.  But  this 
covenant — this  new  testament — was  to  be 
made  with  the  house  of  Israel  and  the  house 
of  Judah,  the  only  church  or  covenant 
people  which  God  has  ever  had  since  the 
covenant  with  Abraham  and  his  seed.  Now 
since  the  house  of  Israel  and  Judah  com- 
posed all  Israel,  and  all  in  this  covenant 
were  to  have  the  law  written  in  their  hearts, 
all  were  to  be  saved ;  and  Paul  having 
proved  to  the  Jews,  that  of  this  new  cove- 
nant Christ  was  after  his  death  the  mediator, 
may  we  not  learn  what  this  same  apostle 
means,  when,  after  describing  to  the  Ro- 
mans the  operation  of  this  new  covenant 
with  Israel  under  the  figure  of  a  tree,  with 
dead  branches  cut  off  and  living  ones  grafted 
in,  he  says  :  "  And  so  [in  this  way]  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved,"  and  follows  it  with  a  quo- 
tation from  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  to  prove 
the  same  great  truth,  viz.,  that  all  in 
this  covenant  which  was  made  with  Israel, 


142  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

should  be  saved  ;  that  the  covenant  of 
grace,  or  second  covenant,  of  which  Christ 
was  mediator,  would  be  just  as  much  with 
Israel  as  the  first ;  that  the  church  was  one, 
as  described  in  the  figure  of  the  tree  ;  that 
the  only  great  change  v/ould  be,  that  while 
the  first  had  many  unbelievers  and  but  few 
Grentile  converts  in  it,  the  latter  and  better 
would  have  no  unbelievers,  but  great  num- 
bers of  G-entile  converts,  and  all  unbeiiev- 
ign  Jews  would  be  cut  off,  or,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Peter,  be  destroyed  from  among 
the  people  of  Grod. 

Now  if  these  views  are  correct,  does  it 
not  follow  that  the  present  people  calling 
themselves  Jews  are  not  now  in  covenant, 
and  that  Jeremiah  has  not  foretold  any 
future  covenant  to  be  made  with  them,  but 
only  that  which  has  been  made  ? 

Does  it  not  also  follow,  that  all  which 
Paul  says — Rom.  11 — is  but  showing  how 
the  covenant  with  Abraham  and  David  is' 
continued  with  their  seed,  and  how  all 
Israel,  under  the  new  covenant,  will  be 
saved,  and  how  Christ  has  put  an  end  to 
the  old  covenant  after  his  death,  by  repeal- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  143 

ing  all  the  laws  of  the  first  covenant  and 
establishing  his  own,  and  by  changing  the 
sacraments  to  correspond  with  the  new  and 
better  covenant,  under  which  all  are  to  have 
the  law  written  in  their  hearts  ?  And  then 
would  the  present  Jew,  ^^vho  in  violation  of 
that  repeal  continues  to  circumcise  his  child 
therej)y,  make  him  a  Jew  any  more  than 
an  Ishmaelite  is  a  Jew,  or  a  Gentile  would 
be  if  he  should  circumcise  himself  or  his 
child,  or  both? 

But  what  then  are  we  to  understand  by 
the  teachings  of  vs.  28-31  ?  We  answer, 
that  whatever  difficulty  there  may  be  in 
understanding  them,  it  should  not  lead  us 
to  reject  what  seems  plain.  But  is  there, 
after  all,  any  more  difficulty  in  understand- 
ing these  verses  according  to  the  foregoing 
views,  than  if  we  adopt  the  more  common 
interpretation  of  vs.  25  and  6  ?  Keep  in 
mind,  if  we  are  right,  that  Paul  constantly 
uses  the  term  "Israel,"  as  in  common  use, 
for  the  descendants  of  Abraham,  as  in  the 
old  covenant.  Then  in  v.  28,  he  says, 
''  They,"  the  Israel  of  the  old  covenant,  in 
large    numbers,    "are    enemies    for   your 


144  LETTERS  TO  A  MILLENARIAN. 

sakes."  They  are  enemies  for  the  benefit  of 
the  Gentiles,  as  shown  in  vs.  11  and  12. 
Through  their  fall  and  diminution,  salva- 
tion is  come  to  the  Grentiles.  Their  enmity 
led,  in  the  mysterious  providence  of  Grod,  to 
the  preaching  of  *  the  gospel  to  you.  But 
the  other  part,  the  election  or  elected  rem- 
nant of  V.  5,  are  beloved  for  the  fathers' 
:sake,  for  through  the  covenant  with  them, 
;they  are  the  seed  of  Abraham  and  heirs  ac- 
cording to  the  promise.  He  then  adds. 
As  ye  Gentiles  in  time  past  did  not  be- 
lieve, but  now  have  been  led  to  believe 
through  their  fall,  as  stated  v.  11,  so  by 
the  purpose  of  God,  these  have  now  been 
left  to  reject  Christ,  as  in  v.  25,  "  That 
through  your  mercy,  they  also  may  obtain 
mercy," — they  also  may  have  the  gospel 
preached  to  them.  For  if  the  preaching  of 
the  gospel  by  them  to  the  Gentiles  was  a 
fmercy,  and  led  to  the  saving  of  some  of  the 
Gentiles,  so  hereafter  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  to  the  Jews  by  the  Gentiles  would 
.be  a  mercy,  and  save  a  few  of  them. 

But  why  then  are  they  so  long  kept  in  a 
separate  state,  if  not  that  they  may  be  ga- 
thered again  ? 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  145 

We  may  not  be  able  to  tell  more  than 
why  they  were  first  called.  But  still,  may 
it  not  be  for  a  warning  to  all  nations  where 
the  Bible  is  read,  and  these  Jews  seen  in 
their  present  deplorable  state;  ofthe'dan- 
ger  of  rejecting  Christ  as  they  did,  and 
thus  by  their  fall,  salvation  still  come  to 
the  Gentiles  ? 

"Was  it  not  thus  used  by  Paul  in  this 
chapter,  showing  the  Grentile  converts, 
that  if  (xod  spared  not  the  natural  branches 
which  lay  cut  off,  before  their,  and  our  eyes, 
take  heed  lest  he  also  spare  not  thee  ?  Now 
if  this  be  one  object  ;  if  their  fall  is  thus  to 
continue  to  contribute  to  the  salvation  of 
the  Grentiles,  may  we  not  expect,  that  their 
present  blindness  and  dispersion  will  last 
till  the  last  Gentile  convert  is  brought  in, 
or  as  Paul  says,  v.  25,  the  fulness  of  the 
Gentiles  be  come  in?  That  they  will  always 
stand  before  the  eyes  of  the  world  as  a 
proof  of  the  consequence  of  the  sin  of 
rejecting  Christ,  just  as  the  plates  on  the 
covering  of  the  tabernacle  did  of  the  sin 
of  Corah  and  his  company  in  rebelling 
against  God.  These  were  placed  before 
13 


146  LETTERS     TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

them  as  a   warning,  till  the  service  of  the 
tabernacle  ceased. 

Is  not  this  at  least  as  probable,  as  it  is, 
that  after  a  while  the  Jews  are  again  to  be 
recalled,  and  that  because  they  have  reject- 
ed Christ,  they  are  to  take  a  prominent  and 
separate  stand  at  the  head  of  the  church, 
to  receive  rich  blessings,  which  the  believ- 
ing Jews  have  forfeited  to  their  descendants 
by  becoming  Christians  ?  And  yet  we  fully 
admit,  that  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of 
all  this  is  hidden  far  beyond  our  compre- 
hension, and  with  Paul  say,  "  0  the  depth," 
&c. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER     XIII. 

Dear  Sir  : — Having,  as  we  think,  found 
the  heirs  to  all  the  unpaid  legacies  of  the 
Abrahamic  will  or  covenant  to  be  true  be- 
lievers and  none  others,  our  next  inquiry- 
is,  What  legacies  have  been  paid  and  what 
are  still  due  to  the  believers  of  the  present 
day  and  onward  ? 

I.  What  legacies  have  been  paid,  or 
what  promises  have  been  fulfilled  to  Israel  ? 

We  answer,  they  were  greatly  mul- 
tiplied, and  continued  to  prosper  for  above 
nine  hundred  years,  till  the  reign  of  Solo- 
mon, when  he  built  their  splendid  temple. 
They  were  in  possession  of  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan till  the  end  of  that  dispensation,  with 
the  exception  of  the  seventy  years  that  the 
land  might  keep  her  violated  Sabbaths.  They 
were  the  richest  and  most  powerful  nation 
in  the  world.  They  only  had  the  word  of 
G-od  among  them,  and  the  true  worship  of 


148  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

Grodj  in  distinction  from  all  others  ;  and 
this,  St.  Paul  says,  Rom.  3:  2,  was  their 
chief  advantage.  From  them  the  Saviour 
descended,  through  whom  Abraham  was  to 
be  a  father  to  many  nations,  and  through 
whom  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  were  to 
be  blessed  in  Abraham  and  his  seed.  All 
these  legacies,  we  think,  have  been  paid, 
because  they  were  promised  to  Grod's  cove- 
nant people,  and  because  they  have  in 
fact  had  them,  and  because  none  of  these 
seem  to  be  included  in  the  special  blessings 
of  the  new  covenant,  as  stated  by  Jer.  31  : 
31,  to  be  made  at  a  period  then  future,  and 
under  which  we  now  seem  to  live,  as 
before  shown. 

But  to  this  you  will  perhaps  reply,  that 
there  are  many  promises  made  to  Israel  by 
the  prophets  relating  to  their  return  from 
captivity  and  their  future  prosperity,  which 
have  not  yet  had  their  fulfilment,  and 
must  therefore  still  be  due  to  them,  to  be 
paid  hereafter. 

This  objection  can  only  be  met  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  prophecies,  and  to  the  history  of 
Isrdel.     But  as  these  letters  are  merely  in- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  149 

tended  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of 
these  prophecies,  all  that  will  here  be  at- 
tempted will  be  to  refer  to  a  few  prophetic 
promises,  which  seem  to  be  most  full  and 
to  be  most  relied  upon,  to  prove  the  future 
return  of  the  present  scattered  Jews  to  Je- 
rusalem. Such  as  found  Lev.  26,  Deut. 
30,  Isaiah  2,  11,  12,  Jer.  29,  31,  32,  and 
33d  chapters,  and  Ezekiel  16,  20,  34,  36, 
and  37th  chapters. 

And  a  very  slight  examination  of  these 
predictions,  so  as  to  show  on  what  principle 
they  are  supposed  to  be  fulfilled,  is  all  that 
is  proposed. 

But  first  I  would  remark,  that  if  we  have 
been  successful  in  proving  that  the  only 
seed  of  Abraham  and  heirs  of  the  promises 
are  at  present  true  believers,  then  they  are 
not  in  captivity,  and  so  cannot  now  come  out 
of  it. 

But  are  the  above  prophetic  promises  ful- 
filled ?     Let  us  see. 

The  first  promised  return  is  found  Lev. 

26:  40—46.      In  44,    ''I   will  not    cast 

them  away,  to  destroy  them  utterly,  and  to 

break  my  covenant  with  them."   A  few  of 

13* 


150  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

the  covenant  people  were  to  return,  as  they 
did  from  Babylon,  &o.,  after  the  land  had 
enjoyed  her  Sabbaths.  But  on  what  condi- 
tion was  that  return  ?  In  verses  14  and  15 
we  are  told  distinctly  that  they  would  go 
captive  if  they  would  not  obey  the  ceremo- 
nial law,  and  verse  40,  if  they  would  con- 
fess their  iniquities,  &c.  Was  not  their  sin 
the  violation  of  the  ceremonial  law  ?  and 
must  we  not  suppose,  then,  that  this  return 
w^as  to  be  before  the  ceremonial  law  was 
fulfilled  and  abolished  by  the  death  of 
Christ  ?  Does  not  the  reference  to  the  fact, 
verses  34,  35  and  43,  that  then  the  land 
would  enjoy  her  Sabbaths,  her  rest,  ''  Be- 
cause it  did  not  rest  in  your  Sabbaths  when 
ye  dwelt  upon  it,"  strengthen  the  foregoing 
view  ?  The  sabbatical  years  which  were 
violated  were  probably  not  more  than  seven- 
ty ;  at  most  they  could  not  have  been  more 
than  double  that  number  before  the  captivity 
in  Babylon,  if  they  had  kept  none.  Surely 
then  the  Jews  are  not  now  keeping  those 
violated  Sabbaths,  nor  the  land  either,  for 
they  have  long  since  been  all  kept. 

The  next  return  spoken  of  to  which  I 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  151 

would  call  your  attention,  is  found  in  Deut. 
30,  where  we  have  an  extended  account  of 
their  return  from  those  fearful  woes  pro- 
nounced against  them  by  Moses,  chapters 
28  and  29.  But  what  is  the  condition 
on  which  they  were  to  be  brought  back 
from  all  the  nations  whither  the  Lord  had 
scattered  them  ?  In  chapter  28 :  15  we 
are  told  that  if  they  did  not  keep  the  law 
repeated  by  Moses  that  day,  (the  ceremo- 
nial,) that  then  these  curses  would  come 
upon  them  ;  and  then  we  are  told,  chapter 
30  :  1,  2,  and  10  verses,  that  the  condi 
tion  of  their  return  was  that  they  should  re 
turn  to  their  obedience  of  the  same  ceremo 
nial  law  :  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  when 
all  these  things  are  come  upon  thee,  the 
blessing  and  the  curse,"  first  their  prosper- 
ity, and  then  their  adversity,  "  which  I 
have  set  before  thee,  and  thou  shalt  call 
them  to  mind  among  all  the  nations 
whither  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  driven  thee, 
and  shalt  return  unto  the  Lord  thy  God, 
and  shalt  obey  his  voice,  according  to  all 
that  I  command  thee  this  day,  thou,  and 
thy  children,  with  all  thy  heart  and  with 


152  LETTERS    TO    A    xMILLENARIAN. 

all  thy  soul,  then  the  Lord  thy  God  will 
turn  thy  captivity,  and  gather  thee,"  &c. 
Now,  since  both  the  threatening  and  the 
promise  depended  on  disobedience  and  obe- 
dience to  the  same  ceremonial  law,  must  it 
not  refer  to  a  period  prior  to  the  death  of 
Christ,  while  that  law  was  in  force,  after 
which  Christ  solemnly  commanded  aU  Jews 
to  believe  on  him,  and  be  baptized — not 
circumcised — on  pain  of  death?  And  if 
that  return  is  yet  future,  must  not  the  con- 
dition be  obedience  to  the  ceremonial  law, 
or,  in  other  words,  rebellion  against  Christ? 
But  surely  you  will  not  say  that  rebellion 
against  Christ  is  the  condition.  Must  not 
then  that  return  have  been  fulfilled  ?  Would 
it  not  now  be  sin  in  a  converted  Jew  to 
offer  sacrifices  as  much  as  for  any  other  per- 
son, and  is  it  not  so  for  the  unconverted  ? 

Before  entering  on  an  examination  of  the 
predictions  of  the  prophets  in  Canaan,  it 
may  be  well  to  remember,  that  those  who 
were  sent  to  them  before  their  captivity 
were  sent  as  ministers  now  to  urge  them 
to  obey  the  Lord,  by  pointing  them  to  the 
woeful  consequence  of  disobedience,  and  on 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  153 

the  other  hand  to  the  rich  promises  yet  to 
be  fulfilled  to  them  if  they  obeyed,  includ- 
ing the  certainty  that  they  would  disobey 
and  suffer,  repent  and  be  brought  back. 

Those  who  were  sent  just  about  the 
time  of  the  first  siege  of  Jerusalem,  and 
after  they  were  in  captivity,  seem  to  have 
been  sent  to  encourage  the  believing  Jews, 
by  assuring  them  that  doleful  and  hopeless 
as  their  present  condition  appeared,  they 
should  assuredly  be  brought  back,  and  be 
greatly  prospered  and  blessed,  after  they 
had  been  seventy  years  in  captivity,  and 
that  the  promised  Saviour  would  yet  as- 
suredly descend  from  them,  and  be  a  rich 
blessing  to  all  nations,  as  promised  to  Abra- 
ham. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER  XTV. 

Dear  Sir  : — Let  us  now  turn  to  the  2d, 
llth,  and  12th  chapters  of  Isaiah,  uttered 
more  than  100  years  before  the  Babylonish 
captivity  ;  and  here  I  will  only  ask,  does 
not  this  description  of  the  church  somewhat 
resemble  the  description  which  Paul  gives  of 
the  church  in  his  day,  formed  of  believers, 
He  b.  12  :  22 — 24  :  •  'But  ye  are  come  to  Mount 
Zion,"  &c.,  to  the  end  of  the  chapter  ?  But 
as  no  commentator  has  succeeded  in  making 
that  chapter  very  plain,  I  will  not  attempt 
it.  And  may  not  the  return  spoken  of  11 : 
11  &  12  refer  to  that  return  that  seems  to 
have  taken  place  while  Christ  was  upon 
earth,  and  spoken  of  Acts  2  :  5,  by  Peter, 
when  he  says,  just  after  the  death  of  Christ: 
*'And  there  were  dwelling  at  Jerusalem 
Jews,  devout  men,  out  of  every  nation  un- 
der heaven."  Had  they  not  returned  to  see 
their  long-promised  Saviour  ?     It  was  surely 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  155 

natural  for  devout  Jews  who  were  expect- 
ing the  Saviour  to  come  and  reign  over  them 
and  cause  them  to  prosper,  when  they  heard 
that  he  had  actually  come  to  return  to  Je- 
rusalem, as  they  certainly  had,  or  they 
would  not  have  been  dwelling  there  ;  and 
did  not  Micah  say,  5  :  3,  that  it  would  be  so 
after  Christ  was  born  ?  And  is  it  not  even 
possible  that  the  highly  figurative  language 
of  verses  14 — 16  may  intimate  the  manner 
in  which  the  way  was  to  be  opened  by  the 
powers  of  Rome  for  their  return  at  that 
time  ?  I  would  not  say  that  it  is  so,  but  only 
ask,  may  not  this  return  of  verses  11  and  12 
have  been  completed  at  the  death  of  Christ, 
since  the  prophet  refers  it  to  the  time  when 
Christ  was  on  earth  ?  May  not  then  this 
whole  passage  refer  to  the  commencement 
and  future  prosperity  of  the  Christian 
Church  ?  The  return  mentioned  by  Peter 
from  all  nations  on  earth  was  as  extensive 
as  the  promise  by  Isaiah. 

Let  us  now  pass  to  the  examination  of  a 
few  of  the  predictions  of  Jeremiah  and  Eze- 
kiel,  which  Millenarians  think  certainly  pro- 
mise more  than  has  yet  been  received  by  the 
Jews.     But — 


156  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

1.  First,  we  remark  that  wo  have  found 
no  prediction  intimating  that  the  ten  tribes 
would  be  recalled  from  captivity,  except 
those  that  returned  and  united  themselves 
with  the  tribe  of  Judah.  Amos  seems  to 
have  predicted  their  captivity,  6  :  7,  and 
perhaps  8  :  14,  where  he  says  :  "  They  shall 
fall,  and  never  rise  up  again."  But  he  says 
not  one  word  about  any  return.  Isaiah 
plainly  foretold  the  destruction  of  the  ten 
tribes,  now  called  Israel,  by  the  Syrians  and 
Philistians,  8  :  8 — 17,  but  it  was  followed  by 
no  promise  that  they  would,  as  a  separate 
people,  ever  be  brought  back  again.  This 
prediction  was  uttered  a  few  years  before 
the  date  of  the  event,  as  recorded  2  Kings, 
17  :  1 — 18.  They  had,  by  setting  up  idols, 
&c.,  as  a  nation,  incurred  the  penalty  of 
excision  from  God's  covenant  people.  Af- 
ter this  they  seem  only  known  as  connected 
with  Judah,  to  which  tribe  remnants  resort- 
ed, as  recorded  2d  Chronicles,  11  :  16,  just 
after  Jeroboam  set  up  the  golden  calves,  and 
15  :  8,  10,  under  the  good  reign  of  Asa,  and 
31,  under  the  reign  of  Hezekiah  ;  so  that, 
probably,  all  the  tribes  were  represented  in 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  157 

the  tribe  of  Judah,  as  implied  when  James 
addressed  his  epistle  to  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel. 

2d.  Our  next  general  remark  is,  that  all 
that  was  said  about  the  Jews  going  into 
captivity  after  this  seems  to  have  referred 
to,  and  to  have  been  fulfilled,  when  they 
were  carried  captive  to  Babylon ;  no  prophet 
seems  to  have  spoken  of  any  later  captivity, 
so  far  as  we  have  found.  The  folio v/ing 
seem  all  to  refer  to  that  captivity,  or  to  some- 
thing before — namely,  Isaiah  3:  1 — 26  ;  22: 
18,  20,  25  ;  39  :  5—7.  eremiah  6  :  22— 
25  ;  10  :  17,  18  ;  15  :  1—8  ;  16  :  1—13 
19  :  6—15  ;  21  :  3—6  ;  25  :  9—11 ;  26 
6  ;  27  :  22  ;  32  :  26—29  ;  34  : 1—3  ;  41 :  2 
52  :  1—34.  Ezekiel  7  :  2—9  ;  12  :  1—28 
14 :  12—23  ;  16  :  35—43  ;  21  :  25—27.  Mi- 
cah  3  :  12.  These  may  not  include  all,  but 
they  are  the  most  full ;  and  they  seem  all 
to  have  been  fulfilled  when  the  Jews  went 
to  Babylon  as  captives.  If  that  be  so,  is  it 
probable  that  these  prophets  ever  predicted 
a  return  from  a  captivity  of  which  they  nor 
the  Jews  had  never  heard  ? 

3d.  We  remark  thirdly,  that  these  pro- 
14 


158  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

pliets  seem  to  have  been  sent  to  encourage 
the  pious  Jews,  by  assuring  them,  that  de- 
plorable as  their  present  condition  was, 
yet  after  seventy  years  they  would  again  be 
brought  back  to  their  own  land.  This  period 
had  been  definitely  fixed  by  Jeremiah  ;  and 
as  no  other  time  had  been  spoken  of  by  any 
other  prophet,  must  not  all  the  Jews  have 
understood  them  as  referring  to  that  time 
when  Jeremiah  or  Ezekiel,  who  were  with 
them  in  their  captivity,  spoke  of  their  cer- 
tain return  to  the  land  of  Canaan  ?  Besides, 
this  same  deliverance  and  return  after  seven- 
ty years,  when  Babylon  was  to  be  taken, 
was  referred  to,  Isaiah  13: 16 — 19,  compared 
with  14  :  1—4  ;  44  ;  27—45  :  1 ;  and  by 
Jeremiah  51 :  5,  6,  11,  28  ;  and  2d  Chron- 
icles 36  :  22,  iScc. 

In  the  31st  chap,  of  Jeremiah,  10th  verse, 
we  are  told  :  ''  He  that  scattered  Israel  will 
gather  them  ;"  and  then,  v.  22 — 26,  and  35 
— 40,  we  have  an  account  of  that  gathering. 
Now  have  these  predictions  been  fulfilled  to 
the  extent  here  described  ?  We  reply,  first, 
that  the  description  in  verses  35 — 37  seems 
exactly  to  fall  in  with  that  of  the  new  cove- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  159 

nant  described  verses  31 — 34.  Again,  the 
return  described  in  verses  22 — 30  does  not 
seem  to  be  a  more  extensive  return  than 
that  which  the  prophet  had  said  in  his  letter 
to  those  already  in  captivity  in  Babylon,  ch. 
29  ;  10 — 14,  would  positively  take  place 
after  seventy  years.  Now  if  the  one  has 
been  fulfilled,  as  it  must  have  been,  may 
not  the  other,  since  they  were  soon  to  be  to- 
gether in  captivity  in  Babylon,  and  were  to 
return  together  ? 

Besides,  all  this  was  to  be  done  for  the 
house  of  Israel  and  the  house  of  Judah, 
which  were  then  to  go  into  captivity,  in- 
cluding the  whole  church  of  Christ.  But  if 
this  return  be  yet  future,  then  these  bless- 
ings are  either  promised  to  a  people  whom 
Christ  calls  the  children  of  the  Devil,  or  to 
the  church,  which  is  not  in  captivit3^ 

But  is  it  said  that  all  did  not  return,  and, 
therefore,  another  return  must  be  included  ? 
We  answer,  that  the  proclamation  of  Cyrus 
freed  all  from  bondage,  and  allowed  them  to 
return,  and  that  the  promise  of  the  Lord 
secured  the  return  only  of  those  who  had  not 
incurred  the  penalty  of  excision,  which  was 


160  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

probably  but  a  small  number,  and  that  the 
return  might  extend  till  the  death  of  Christ 
(as  they  were  never  again  to  go  into  captiv- 
ity), when  they  had  actually  returned  from 
all  nations — see  Acts  2:5. 

If  we  turn  to  chapter  32  :  36 — -44,  the  same 
remarks  in  substance  apply.  Just  after  re- 
iterating that  the  city  would  assuredly  be 
taken  and  burned,  and  they  be  led  captive 
to  Babylon,  and  all  hope  seemed  to  fail  to  en- 
courage the  few  believing  Jews,  he  repeated 
the  same  encouraging  promise  almost  in  the 
words  of  his  letter  to  the  captives,  29  :  14, 
which  return  he  had  assured  them  was  to 
be  after  seventy  years,  and  no  other  return 
is  alluded  to.  Is  it  not  then  past  ?  If  not, 
why  no  allusion  to  a  future  captivity  and 
return  ? 

Turn  now  to  chap.  33,  when  the  prophet 
had  a  second  message  while  he  was  yet  in 
prison.  He  again  repeats,  v.  5,  the  certainty 
of  their  being  taken  captives,  and  then  v. 
6,  and  onward,  of  their  return  and  prosper- 
ity ;  but  alludes  to  no  other  time  than  that 
which  he  had  mentioned  after  70  years, 
which    time    the    Lord    had    fixed.      But 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  161 

none  of  the  prophets  tell  us  that  the  return 
was  to  be  complete  before  the  death  of 
Christ.  From  v.  15-18,  the  prophet,  to 
comfort  them  still  farther,  under  the  dread- 
ful calamities  which  they  were  enduring  and 
were  to  endure  for  a  long  time  to  come,  adds, 
'^  But  in  those  days,"  while  they  enjoyed  the 
blessings  of  that  return,  the  Lord  would 
cause  the  "  Branch  of  righteousness  to  grow 
up  unto  David,"  or  in  other  words,  that 
they  should  remain  in  their  own  land,  till 
Christ  should  come  of  the  seed  of  David, 
who  was  in  a  special  manner  promised  as  the 
richest  legacy  of  the  Abrahamic  will,  the 
richest  bequest  made  to  the  seed  of  Abra- 
ham, and  which  was  to  be  given  them  in 
their  own  land.  That  legacy  they  have 
received.  Have  they  not  all  the  rest  they 
were  to  have  in  Canaan,  or  must  they  lose 
that  by  rejecting  Christ  to  secure  others  ? 

Then,  as  if  aware  that  he  had  promised 
blessings  almost  beyond  the  power  of  their 
belief,  when  they  were  soon  all  to  be  cap- 
tives in  Babylon,  the  Lord  directs  the  proph- 
et to  assure  them,  v.  20  and  onward,  that 
all  this  is  as  certain  as  the  return  of 
14* 


162  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

day  and  niglit,  and  that,  too,  while  the 
priests  and  Levites  held  their  places  under 
the  Mosaic  law.  If  more  is  included  in  the 
last  message,  from  v.  23-26,  does  it  not 
belong  to  the  Israel  of  the  new  covenant 
described  by  Paul  ?  So  that  all  that  was 
promised  to  Israel  in  Canaan  may  be  ful- 
filled. 

In  confirmation  of  the  foregoing  views,  let 
it  be  remembered  that  we  are  repeatedly 
reminded,  that  so  great  would  be  the  de- 
strnction  of  life  of  those  that  were  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  in  Judea  under  Zedekiah,  that 
comparatively  only  a  few  would  escape. 
See  Jer.  29:  15-19,  and  44:  25-30;  and 
then,  when  we  remember  that  very  many  of 
those  who  escaped  the  sword,  had  probably 
incurred  the  penalty  of  excision,  is  it  any 
wonder  that  the  promise  was  fulfilled  by 
the  return  of  a  few  ;  and  are  we  not  war- 
ranted in  supposing  that  the  prosperity  to 
which  the  prophet  so  often  referred,  and 
which  was  to  follow  that  return,  had  refer- 
ence to  the  time  when,  hundreds  of  years  af- 
ter, they  again  increased  to  a  great  and  power- 
ful nation,  just  as  the  promises  to  Abraham 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  163 

and  his  seed  referred  to  a  period  long  after 
he  was  dead  ?  And  then  there  seems  no  spe- 
cial difficulty  in  supposing  that  all  the 
bequests  made  to  the  seed  of  Abraham,  in 
the  land  of  Canaan,  as  foretold  by  Jeremiah, 
have  been  received  by  them,  and  that  what 
remains  is  that  which  is  promised  in  the 
new  covenant,  and  to  those  that  are  in- 
cluded in  that  covenant. 

Yours,  &o.,  A.  W. 


LETTER  X  Y . 

Dear  Sir  : — Let  us  now  look  at  a  few  of 
the  predictions  of  Ezekiel,  and  see  whether 
he  brings  back  the  Jews  before  or  after  the 
death  of  Christ.  Whether  according  to  him, 
their  return  is  complete,  or  is  yet  in  part 
certainly  future.  As  he  began  to  prophesy 
after  the  Lord  had  fixed  the  time  of  their 
return  from  Babylon  by  Jeremiah,  there  was 
no  need  of  his  repeating  that  ;  for  surely 
so  long  as  he  spake  of  no  future  captivity, 
and  no  other  time  of  their  return  than  that 
fixed  by  Jeremiah,  and  spake  to  the  same 
people  of  the  return  from  Babylon,  all 
would  understand  him  as  referring  to  the 
same  time,  as  much  as  different  ministers 
are  now  understood  to  refer  to  the  same 
time, when  they  speak  of  the  judgment  day. 

We  find  one  prediction  of  their  return  16  : 
60-63.  But  here  is  no  intimation  that  it 
will  be  after  the  death  of  Christ,  or  beyond 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  165 

the  timo  specified  by  Jeremiah,  except  that 
the  Grentiles  will  be  received  as  fellow-heirs, 
"  but  not  by  their  covenant."  Then  was 
it  not  by  the  nev/  covenant  of  grace  ?  Jer. 
31:31. 

The  next  we  notice  is  20  :  33-41.  Here 
seems  no  intimation  that  it  was  to  be  more 
distant  than  the  time  specified.  But  there 
is  a  strong  intimation,  v.  38  and  9,  that  the 
excinded  Jews  should  not  return.  "  I  will 
purge  out  from  among  you  the  rebels,  and 
them  that  transgress  against  me,  and  I  will 
bring  them  forth  out  of  the  country  where 
they  sojourn,  and  they  shall  not  enter  into 
the  land  of  Israel."  Now  here  it  seems  the 
house  of  Israel  is  to  be  purged  of  the 
excinded  Jews  ;  and  yet  in  v.  40,  immedi- 
ately following  this,  the  prophet  says  that  all 
the  house  of  Israel,  all  of  them,  are  to  return 
and  serve  the  Lord  in  the  mountains  of 
Israel.  Does  not  then,  the  a// mean,  at  most, 
only  those  who  were  not  excinded,  and  not 
all  who  were  carried  captive  ?  And  who  can 
determine  that  these  were  not  all  brought 
back  before  the  death  of  Christ  ? 

In  ch.  34 :  11-16,   we  have  another  pre- 


166  LETTERS  TO  A  MILLENARIAN. 

diction  that  the  captives  should  be  brought 
back  from  all  the  countries  to  which  they 
had  been  scattered.  But  the  Lord  adds, 
"  I  will  destroy  the  fat  and  the  strong." 
All  the  captives,  then,  are  not  to  return,  but 
the  heirs  not  cut  off.  Y.  23,  he  adds,  that 
he  will  set  one  shepherd  over  them,  a  de- 
scendant of  David.  After  their  return  they 
had  only  one  ruler  over  them,  one  shepherd. 
If  this  refers  to  Christ,  may  it  not  be  to  the 
time  he  was  in  the  flesh,  and  was  subject  to 
the  laws  of  Moses,  and  before  he  was  king  ? 
For  during  his  sojourn  on  earth,  he  seems 
only  to  act  as  prince  subject  to  the  existing 
laws,  and  not  till  after  his  resurrection  did  he 
enact  laws,  for  his  kingdom,  and  appoint  his 
own  officers  to  execute  his  laws  ;  so  that 
there  seems  no  certainty  that  all  here  pre- 
dicted is  not  fulfilled. 

In  ch.  36 :  1-15,  we  have  the  prophet 
addressing  the  hills  of  Judea,  saying  that 
they  would  be  very  fruitful,  and  that  the 
Lord  would  multiply  men  upon  them,  even 
all  the  house  of  Israel — all  not  excinded  ; 
and  was  not  that  promise  fulfilled  before 
Christ,    especially  during  the  time   of  the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN,  167 

Maccabees?  V.  21-38,  we  have  an- 
other repetition  of  the  promise  of  a  general 
return.  But  in  v.  37,  he  says,  ''  I  will  yet 
for  all  this  be  inquired  of  by  the  house  of 
Israel."  Showing  that  all  this  was  to  be 
done  while  the  people  of  Grod,  the  praying 
people,  were  among  the  Jews,  and  in  captiv- 
ity, and  before  they  were  separated  by  the 
introduction  and  operation  of  the  new  cove- 
nant.    Has  it  not  then  been  fulfilled? 

In  the  37th  chapter  of  Ezekiel,  we  have 
another  prediction  of  the  return  of  the  cap- 
tives, which  includes  things  which  Mille- 
narians  think  have  certainly  not  been  ful- 
filled, and  must  therefore  refer  to  some  fu- 
ture return.     But  is  this  certainly  so  ? 

Let  us,  in  examining  this  chapter,  try  to 
place  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  the  weep- 
ing captives  in  Babylon,  the  praying  people 
of  G-od,  not  two  years  after  the  destruction 
of  their  temple,  and  while  they  felt  all  the 
bitterness  of  that  captivity,  and  of  the  loss 
of  the  greater  part  of  their  friends  by  the 
sword,  and  try  to  listen  to  them  saying  to 
their,  prophets.  What  is  to  become  of  us  ? 
Where  are  now  all  the  Lord's  promises  to 


168  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

our  fathers  to  bless  them,  and  to  make 
them  a  blessing  to  all  the  world  through 
that  Saviour  who  had  not  yet  come  to  rule 
over  them  ?  And  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  are 
sent  with  messages  of  comfort  to  them  that 
still  believed  in  Grod.  The  vision  of  Ezekiel 
is  that  which  is  now  before  us. 

Standing  in  Babylon,  where  Ezekiel 
stood,  let  us  listen  to  the  new  vision  of  the 
prophet,  prophesying  to  the  dry  bones,  1-14, 
until  there  stood  up  an  exceeding  great 
army.  Y.  11,  he  says,  "  These  bones  are 
the  whole  house  of  Israel ;"  those  not  ex- 
cinded  from  the  church  of  Israel,  by  hav- 
ing incurred  that  penalty.  In  reply  to  their 
unbelieving  complaint,  v.  11,  saying,  "  Our 
bones  are  dried,  our  hope  is  lost,  we  are  cut 
off  for  our  parts,''  the  prophet  is  directed 
to  say,  V.  12,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  Grod, 
0  my  people,  I  will  open  your  graves,  and 
cause  you  to  come  out  of  your  graves,  and 
bring  you  into  the  land  of  Israel.  And  ye 
shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord,  when  I  have 
opened  your  graves,  0  my  people,  and 
brought  you  up  out  of  your  graves,  and 
shall  put  my  Spirit  in  you,  and  ye  shall 


LETTERS    TO  A    MILLENARIAN.  169 

live,  and  I  shall  place  you  in  your  own  land. 
Then  shall  ye  know  that  I  the  Lord  have 
spoken  it,  and  performed  it,  saiththe  Lord." 
Now  as  the  time  when  this  return  was  to 
commence  had  a  few  years  before  been  defi- 
nitely fixed  by  Jeremiah,  a  colleague  pro- 
phet, and  was  no  doubt  very  often  spoken  of 
by  the  captives  one  to  another,  must  not  every 
Jew  understand  him  as  referring  to  that 
time,  unless  he  referred  to  another,  which 
he  did  not  as  yet,  and  he  surely  did  not  in- 
tend to  deceive  the  Jews  ?  Was  not  all  this 
fulfilled  when,  about  fifty  years  after  this, 
the  proclamation  of  Cyrus,  as  recorded  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Ezra,  v/as  issued  ?  But 
can  the  next  message  be  so  explained  as  to 
agree  with  this?  Let  us  see  :  v.  15,  ''  The 
word  of  the  Lord  came  again  unto  me." 
It  was  a  separate  message.  He  had  before 
assured  them  of  their  certain  return  to 
their  own  land,  and  now  he  is  sent  to  teach 
them,  that  other  and  still  richer  blessings 
were  still  in  store  for  them,  deplorable  as 
their  condition  now  appeared.  And  first,  by 
taking  two  sticks  and  joining  them  into 
one,  he  is  to  teach  them  that  when  they 
15 


170  LETTERS   TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

should  come  out  of  captivity,  all  the  rem- 
nants would  be  joined  in  one  nation,  and 
one  king  should  rule  over  them,  and  they 
should  never  again  be  tv\^o  nations,  destroy- 
ing one  another,  as  they  had  done  before  ; 
neither  should  they  defile  themselves  any 
more  with  idols  :  "  And  they  shall  be  my 
people,  and  I  will  be  their  Grod."  Now  does 
not  the  proclamation  of  Cyrus,  and  the  re- 
turn commenced  under  Ezra,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  Jews  from  that  time,  to  the 
death  of  Christ,  give  us  reason  to  believe 
that  this  prediction  has  been  fulfilled  ? 
They  were  liberated  by  Cyrus,  they  com- 
menced their  return  under  Ezra,  they  were 
organized  in  one  government,  and  were 
never  more  divided,  they  rebuilt  their  tem- 
ple, grew  into  a  great  and  powerful  nation, 
continued  in  Canaan  to  the  time  of  Christ, 
were  never  after  this  idolaters,  as  before,  and 
Christ  did  descend  from  David.  But  let  us 
not  forget  that  the  return  and  prosperity 
here  spoken  of,  as  if  it  were  all  in  one 
year,  covered  a  space  of  more  than  five 
hundred  years,  as  in  the  promise  to  Abra- 
ham.    So  that  there  was  time  for  the  ful- 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  171 

filment  of  all,  and  all  seems  to  have  been 
fulfilled  by  the  same  slow  process  that  the 
promise  to  give  Abraham  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan was. 

The  prophet  now  proceeds,  v.  24,  •  And 
David  my  servant  [Christ]  shall  be  king  over 
them.'  But  as  yet  he  does  not  say  when  or 
in  what  part  of  their  history  after  their  re- 
turn he  would  be  king,  but  only  that  he 
would  be  king.  The  prophet  continues  and 
says,  ''  And  they  shall  have  one  shepherd ; 
they  also  shall  walk  in  my  judgments,  and 
observe  my  statutes  and  do  them.  And  they 
shall  dwell  in  the  land  that  I  have  given 
unto  Jacob  my  servant,  wherein  your  fathers 
have  dwelt,  and  they  shall  dwell  therein, 
even  they,  and  their  children,  and  their  chil- 
dren's children  for  ever  ;  and  my  servant 
David  shall  be  their  prince  for  ever- — and  I 
will  set  my  sanctuary  in  the  midst  of  them 
for  ever,"  &c.  How  long  then  was  this 
covenant  called  everlasting  to  continue,  or 
to  what  period  do  the  terms  for  ever  and 
evermore,  so  often  repeated  in  this  passage, 
refer?  If  this  can  be  determined,  then  we 
can  determine  whether  this  prediction  has 


172  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

been  fulfilled.  If  we  can  determine  to  what 
time  forever  refers,  in  any  one  of  these  ex- 
pressions, then  it  is  probable  we  have  a  key 
by  which  we  may  determine  all,  for  they  all 
seem  to  refer  to  the  same  period.  They 
shall  dwell  in  the  land  for  ever,  and  David 
shall  be  my  prince /or  ever.  I  will  make  an 
everlasting  covenant  with  them,  and  I  will 
set  my  sanctuary  in  the  midst  of  them /or 
evermore.  Doubtless  all  these  terms  refer 
to  the  same  period.  Can  we  then  determine 
any  one  of  them  ?  We  are  told  in  v.  24, 
that  David  was  to  be  king  over  them,  but  in 
V.  25,  we  are  told,  my  servant  David  shall 
be  their  prince /or  ever.  The  same  prophet 
says,  Ezekiel  84:  24,  ''  I  the  Lord  will  be 
their  God,  and  my  servant  David  a  prince 
among  them."  Now,  if  the  prophet  meant 
to  make  the  ordinary  distinction  between 
king  and  prince,  as  he  seems  to  do,  by  call- 
ing him  king  in  one  connexion  and  prince 
in  another,  then  the  time  referred  to  by  the 
term  for  ever,  connected  with  his  princely 
character — in  v.  25  must  terminate  with  his 
death,  for  it  was  only  during  his  lifetime 
on  earth  that,  as  a  prince,  he  was  subject  to 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  173 

the  laws  of  the  kinsrdom.  "While  he  was  in 
this  world,  in  a  bodily  form,  though  a  great 
prince,  being  born  heir  to  a  great  kingdom, 
he  made  no  laws,  but  only  explained  and 
obeyed  them.  Being  made  under  the  law, 
he  had  no  right  to  make  or  break  laws,  and 
his  obedience  was  perfect  to  the  laws  of  Moses . 
But  as  soon  as  he  rose  from  the  dead,  having 
received  the  kingdom  to  which  he  was  heir, 
he  said,  '  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in 
heaven  and  earth.  Gro  ye  therefore  and 
teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Grhost.'  Stop  no  longer  at  the  limits 
required  by  the  laws  of  Moses,  but  go  to  all 
nations  and  baptize  instead  of  circumcise. 
Thus  virtually  sending  his  disciples  to  pro- 
claim him  king  of  his  church  or  people,  the 
house  of  Israel,  by  publishing  his  laws,  and 
requiring  all  men,  Jews  as  well  as  Gentiles, 
at  the  peril  of  death  eternal,  to  obey  them, 
though  in  doing  so  they  must  transgress  the 
law  s  of  Moses,  which  he  thereby  shows  he 
has  abrogated,  for  his  kingdom  is  in  Judea 
over  the  same  people.  He  is  now  king,  as 
the  prophet  said,  v.  2\,  he  would  be  in 
15* 


174  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

the  mountains  of  Israel,  over  tlie  returned 
captives  ;  so  that  henceforth  the  subjects  of 
his  kingdom  are  to  obey  his  laws,  and  he 
appoints  his  own  officers  to  execute  his  laws  ; 
the  priests  as  such  have  no  longer  any  thing 
to  do  in  his  kingdom,  nor  the  Levite  either. 

Now  if,  when- the  prophet  said,  "My 
servant  David  shall  be  their  prince  forever," 
he  plainly  meant,  to  the  end  of  the  Jewish  dis- 
pensation, then  does  he  not  refer  to  the  same 
time  when  he  says,  just  before,  that  the  re- 
turned captives  should  dwell  in  the  land  in 
which  their  fathers  dwelt,  forever?  And,  in 
verse  26,  that  he  would  set  his  sanctuary  in 
the  midst  of  them  for  evermore  ?  They  surely 
seem  all  to  refer  to  the  same  time  ;  and  if 
so,  then  all  must  have  been  fulfilled  when 
Christ  died,  which  seems  to  render  the 
whole  passage  comparatively  plain. 

After  this,  the  Jewish  law  having  its  ful- 
filment in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  Christ 
says,  "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven 
and  in  earth,"  and  once  and  forever  abol- 
ishes the  Jewish  laws  and  preferences,  by 
the  establishment  of  his  own  laws,  over  his 
people,  the  same  among  all  nations.     After 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  175 

giving  the  necessary  directions  to  his  disci- 
ples, he  ascended  from  the  earthly  to  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem ;  from  the  earthly  to 
the  heavenly  Canaan,  to  sit  at  the  right 
hand  of  his  Father,  that  he  might  be"  alike 
accessible  to  all  his  subjects  in  this  world. 
He  then  sent  the  Holy  Spirit  to  guide  them 
in  completing  the  arrangement  of  his  laws 
and  officers  in  his  kingdom,  and  there  he 
will  rule  as  the  son  of  David  forever. 

Now  if  these  views  are  at  all  admissible, 
tlien  may  not  all  the  predictions  of  the  re- 
turn of  the  Jews  have  been  accomplished 
when  Christ  died,  or,  in  other  words,  have 
not  all  the  legacies  of  the  Abrahamic  will 
been  paid,  so  far  as  they  were  to  be  paid  in 
Canaan  ?  So  that  none  are  now  due  to  the 
seed  of  Abraham  but  those  included  in  the 
new  covenant,  Jer.  31  :  31,  or  the  cov- 
enant of  grace,  which  does  not  give  any 
promise  of  preference  to  the  present  scat- 
tered Jews,  either  before  or  after  conver- 
sion, nor  any  promise  of  an  earthly  Canaan. 
Nor  does  it  appear  to  include  any  thing 
like  a  general  or  national  conversion,  and 
return  to  the  church,  more  than  of  all  the 


176  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

world,  unless  it  can  bo  found  Rom.  11 : 
12  and  26,  of  which  the  reader  must  judge. 
To  my  own  mind,  I  confess  that  these  pass- 
ages seem  to  convey  a  different  meaning,  or 
at  least  do  not  certainly  convey  that  mean- 
ing. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


LETTER    XVI. 

Dear  Sir  : — I  will  now  bring  these  let- 
ters to  a  close,  by  saying  that  I  wish  you 
distinctly  to  understand  that  I  do  not  at  all 
rest  the  question  of  the  return  of  the  pre- 
sent scattered  people  calling  themselves  the 
children  of  Abraham  to  the  land  of  Canaan, 
and  Christ's  reign  over  them  there,  on  the 
foregoing  intimations  of  what  may  be  the 
meaning  of  certain  predictions  of  the  pro- 
phets, for  I  am  no  student  of  the  prophets, 
but  on  the  question,  Who  are  the  lawful 
heirs  of  the  bequests  made  to  the  seed  of 
Abraham  ?  This  seems  to  be  a  question 
totally  distinct  from  the  question,  What  are 
the  contents  of  the  will  ?  and  should  surely 
be  definitely  settled  before  we  look  at  the 
contents  of  the  will ;  for  before  I  know 
whether  I  am  an  heir,  the  contents  of  the 
will  are  of  little  consequence  to  me.  Indeed, 
it  is  always  difficult  to  understand  an  ob- 


178  LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN. 

scure  will  till  we  know  distinctly  of  whom 
it  speaks,  and  so  of  the  Abrahamic  will  as  ex- 
po undeJ  by  the  prophets. 

Again,  then,  we  repeat,  that  if  we  have 
succeeded  in  showing  that  the  present  Jews 
are  not  the  lawful  heirs,  but  that  they  have 
broken  their  covenant  and  forfeited  their 
heirship,  then  what  the  prophets  say  still 
belong  to  the  seed  of  Abraham  cannot  at 
all  be  said  of  them,  for  they  speak  not  of 
them,  but  of  the  seed,  the  covenant  people, 
the  lawful  heirs  ;  and  if  we  have  succeeded 
in  showing  that  according  to  the  law  of 
Moses,  as  explained  by  Peter,  Christ,  Paul, 
and  John,  true  believers,  wherever  found, 
are  the  seed  of  Abraham  and  heirs  of  the 
promises,  then  whatever  the  prophets  say 
relating  to  the  present  or  future  time,  they 
say  to  them,  and  them  only,  for  they  always 
speak  of  the  seed  of  Abraham,  the  covenant 
people  of  Grod  ;  so  that  whatever  of  pro- 
phetic promises  are  yet  due  to  the  seed  of 
Abraham  belong  to  true  believers,  or  so  it 
seems  to  me,  for  they  constitute  the  old 
Abrahamic  tree,  of  which  there  are  not  two, 
but  one  only,  as  ever,  and  form   now   the 


LETTERS    TO    A    MILLENARIAN.  179 

only  house  of  Israel  and  house  of  Judah 
in  existence.  Upon  that  seed  the  pro- 
phetic eye  was  fixed,  with  that  house 
the  new  covenant  was  to  be  made,  and 
was  made  ;  from  that  house  or  tree  all 
the  dead  branches  were  to  be  cut,  and  none 
but  living  ones  to  be  engrafted,  so  that  there 
could  be  no  need  of  one  saying  to  another, 
"  Know  the  Lord,"  but  only  of  exhorting 
one  another  to  be  faithful,  and  to  take 
warning  by  the  multitude  of  that  house 
who  were  cut  off,  that  they  fell  not  under 
the  same  or  greater  condemnation.  And 
now  will  you  carefully  and  prayerfully  ex- 
amine the  question  of  heirship,  without  mix- 
ing it  up  and  obscuring  it  with  supposed 
meanings  of  prophetic  visions  ? 

And  may  the  Lord  lead  both  you  and  me 
to  such  an  understanding  of  this  as  shall 
enable  us  to  perform  our  duty  in  carrying 
forward  the  revealed  purposes  of  Grod  re- 
specting His  Church  and  its  appropriate- 
duties  to  all  unbelievers,  no  matter  by  what 
name  they  are  called. 

Yours,  &c.,  A.  W. 


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